Robert Hur's Testimony Did Not Exonerate Him From Charges He's A Slimy Partisan Hack
'You made a choice, that was a political choice, it was the wrong choice,' said Adam Schiff.
What did we learn from former special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday? Not a hell of a lot, and certainly nothing to disabuse us of the notion that he’s a slimy partisan hack, and that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint him was highly questionable. (It’s long past time for Democrats to stop making absurd gestures to “fairness” by appointing Republican FBI directors and special counsels. Can you imagine a Republican choosing a Democrat for the same role?)
THIS ONE! THIS TESTIMONY!
Two major things struck us in the hearing, which demonstrated for us anyway exactly what a snake Hur is. One of them was a tell, a way his mask would slip and distract him from saying the right words about how impartial and serious he was. Democratic questioners kept confirming that Hur had “exonerated” Joe Biden in his original report, and it pissed him off every single time. (Fox News of course seized on this, as intended.)
“I need to go back and make sure that I take note of a word that you used, ‘exoneration,’” Hur said. “That is not a word that is used in my report and that is not a part of my task as a prosecutor.”
“You exonerated him,” Jayapal retorted.
“I did not exonerate him,” Hur said. “That word does not appear in the report.”
Jayapal quickly reclaimed her time.
Hur, if he were truly evenhanded, could have just nipped all that in the bud with a prosecutorial explanation of why prosecutors don’t like to use the word “exonerated.” Because certainly, in layman’s terms, he exonerated Biden, by saying explicitly from literally the first line in his report that “We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter.” (Compare that to the weak-ass shit Robert Mueller did in his report, when he pointedly failed to conclude Donald Trump obstructed justice, but failed to not conclude it either!)
Instead, every time Hur was confronted with it, he was bitchy about it, clearly trying to have it both ways. Perhaps he didn’t want there to be clips of him talking about how he, effectively, exonerated Biden. Might hurt his career prospects later. (He also didn’t appear to like it when Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean made him read aloud the parts of his own report about why the Biden case is so different from the Trump stolen classified documents case.)
But the other thing that struck us was bigger, and had to do with the transcripts of his interviews with Biden, which were released yesterday morning, much to Republicans’ chagrin.
Let’s Go To The Transcript!
In the immediate aftermath of Hur’s report, a lot of people focused on how Biden allegedly couldn’t remember when his son Beau died, and how Hur felt the need to mock that. But it turns out the transcripts don’t quite paint the picture Hur did.
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” wrote Hur on page 208.
It was Biden who brought it up, according to the transcript of their interview on October 8, but it sure didn’t read in the pithy way Hur described it. It’s true that Biden, while discussing a certain timeframe in 2017 and 2018, muddled that together with when Beau died, in 2015. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Let’s all read it together, since we have the source material (page 82):
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, um .. . I , I, I, I, I don't know . This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?
MR . HUR: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Remember, in this timeframe, my son is either been deployed or is dying, and, and so it was and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the President. I'm not — and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn't, I hadn't, at this point — even though I'm at Penn, I hadn't walked away from the idea that I may run for office again . But if I ran again, I'd be running for President. And, and so what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th —
Oh, God, May 30th. He asked himself the date, and immediately answered himself. “Oh, God.”
MS. COTTON: 2015.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2015.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Was it 2015 he had died?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It was May of 2015.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It was 2015.
That was the actual exchange Hur felt the need to gratuitiously boil down to “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
Of course, the longer exchange was about compiling documents — remember, this is about documents — for his book Promise Me, Dad, which was released in November of 2017.
Hur didn’t include the part of the transcript where, on page 47, he said Biden had a “photographic understanding and recall” of a house he visited in Mongolia.
On a lighter note, Hur also didn’t include the truly awesome exchange he had with the president on October 9 about the electric cars he gets to drive sometimes on presidential visits to factories.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Probably one of the best parts to being Vice President and President, I get to drive all these, you know, electric vehicles. I have. Damn, they're quick. (Laughter)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You know, think about this. You had one of those big 4 x 4s, the — I think it's a Ford Bronco, whatever it is. Zero to sixty in 4 6.
MR. HUR: Yes.
MR. KRICKBAUM: Instant torque.
MR. HUR: That's fast.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yeah. By the way, you know how it works? (Laughter)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It's really cool.
MR. HUR: Sir, I'd love — I would love, love to hear much more about this, but I do have a few more questions to get through.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You can take 30 seconds, but you put your foot on the brake, you hit, you hit a button that's in the — and it says "launch." (Laughter)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You step your foot on the accelerator all the way down —
MR. HUR: Woah.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — until it gets to about 6, 7 grand. Then all of a sudden, it will say "launch." All you do is take your foot off the brake. (Makes car sound) (Laughter)
MR. HUR: It's on my bucket list.
Robert Hur did not include Joe Biden (makes car sound) in his report.
Hack.
But Back To That Hearing!
As for the rest of the hearing, if Republicans were looking for sound bites, they didn’t get many. When cheesefuck idiot Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin tried to get Hur to say Joe Biden is “senile,” Hur pointedly did not take the bait. And he certainly didn’t express any sort of regret for failing to recommend charges for Biden, considering how he couldn’t establish any sort of good case against Biden that he would win. (Ignoring for a moment, of course, DOJ policy that sitting presidents can’t be indicted.)
“All I have to do when I’m caught taking home classified materials to say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Hur, but I’m getting old. My memory’s not so great?’” asked Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican. “This is the doctrine that you’ve established in our laws now and it’s frightening.”
“Congressman, my intent is certainly not to establish any sort of doctrine,” Hur responded. “I had a particular task, I have a particular set of evidence to consider, and make a judgment with respect to one particular set of evidence and that is what I did.”
Good try, bro.
Here’s Senator Rep. Adam Schiff going off on Hur for his slimy, underhanded decision to “ignite a political firestorm” with his words about Biden’s memory, which he put into his report not exonerating the president.
“You made a choice, that was a political choice, it was the wrong choice,” said Schiff. We’ll let those be the last words in this post.
[CNN / AP / October 8 transcript / October 9 transcript]
PREVIOUSLY!
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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I know I’ve said this yesterday.
But I just can’t get over how maliciously evil it was to use the above exchange about Beau’s death, where he clearly stated “oh god May 30th”
To imply the president of the United States forgot the death of his child
The actual transcript is showing Joe’s memory at 81 might be better than mine at 45
A grieving father. I mean, fuck Hur. My father died November 4, 2012 at 2:00 AM. My mother died October 31 2018, around 1:00 PM. That I remember these facts does not bear in any way on anything except how I have dealt with their deaths. My wife's father died when she was young, and his death to her is an entire season of her life, and she doesn't know the date. Death is one of the most profound intimacies of existence and each of us should be left to it but also respected and offered unconditional love. There is no space for anything else and Hur shows his fundamental indeceny. Disgusting.