(The Center Square) – President Joe Biden won’t be charged with a crime for his handling and sharing of classified documents, but the special counsel report accompanying the decision raises questions about his memory.
The 81-year-old president is seeking another four-year term. He would be 86 if he is elected to and completes a second term.
After years of gaffes, on and off the campaign trail, the 388-page special counsel report highlights Biden’s trouble remembering things, including the year his son died.
“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” according to the report. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’)”
Biden served as vice president under then-President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report continued. “And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”
That’s not the only time Biden’s memory is mentioned in the report.
“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” according to the report.
Another part said jurors would be sympathetic given Biden’s memory.
“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence,” according to the report.
That was repeated elsewhere in the lengthy report.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” according to the report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
