Former Special Counsel Robert Hur’s highly anticipated testimony before the House Judiciary Committee began with a compilation of Donald Trump’s many gaffes and errors — undercutting the MAGA Republicans who presumably want to use the hearing to impugn President Joe Biden’s mental fitness.
The supercut, prepared by Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) featured clips of Trump erroneously identifying international and American leaders, struggling to remember when he was married to his ex-wife, and other instances of the former president stumbling over his words and short-circuiting on camera.
“That is a man who is incapable of avoiding criminal liability. A man who is wholly unfit for office and a man who at the very least, ought to think twice before accusing others of cognitive decline,” Nadler said.
In February, Hur announced in a 388-page report that — per the findings of his investigation — President Joe Biden did not violate any laws in his handling of classified documents found at his home and office, and would not be charged with a crime. Though Biden was cleared of any potential criminal wrongdoing, Hur included some pointed remarks about the president’s cognitive abilities in the report, alleging that Biden did not remember when he was vice president, forgot when his term ended as well as when his term began, and even forgot the day his son Beau Biden died.
Hur is not testifying before Congress as a representative of the Justice Department, but rather as a private citizen.
The transcript of his interview with Biden, which was released in full ahead of Tuesday’s testimony, reveals that Hur was omitting the full context of several of the instances described in his report. For example, Biden did not really forget when his son died, as Hur alleged. According to the transcript, he remembered the date and then briefly questioned the exact year.
In his opening statement, Nadler described Hur’s report as a “Republican hit job.” The White House has also hit back at Hur’s report in anticipation of his testimony. White House Counsel office spokesperson Ian Sams told CNN that the report had been “selectively chopped up and edited,” to present Biden as confused and incompetent.
Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-supercut-trump-gaffes-robert-hur-hearing-1234985918/
