Two Takeaways From Hur Hearing – One A Bombshell

Special Counsel Robert Hur’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee is well along and will likely conclude in another half hour or so. It’s been pretty much what I expected. Hur is taking criticism both both sides. From the GOP for not filing charges an from Democrats for the editorializing in the Executive Summary of his report. One might even say it’s a Rorschach Test for viewers where most have already made up their minds as to which side they will give credibility to.

An interim review was posted by CNN which you can read here.  Hur of course is strongly defending both the legal conclusions he reached, and also his characterization of President Biden, that stuff upfront in the Executive Summary about Biden having a poor memory, and that he’d come across to a jury if tried as a sympathetic and well-meaning old man with memory lapses. I could write reams but I’d like to hone in on two takeaways that have jumped out at me.

First, as CNN notes Adam Schiff got to the heart of something I hope pundits will give plenty of airtime to. Hur has defended his editorializing as being part of a a confidential report. What he tried to do was a form of: Hey, a Special Counsel Report is a confidential document and what happens after I turn it in is out of my hands. Not my problem. But like any other DOJ matter if no charges are filed normal policy is to say nothing. Schiff called bullshit on him.  Schiff pointed out that OF COURSE the report would be released and that Hur knew it! From CNN:

Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat running for a US Senate seat, then pressed Hur about the “political firestorm” he must have known his report would create.

“You understood that you made a choice,” Schiff said. “That was a political choice. It was the wrong choice.”

“What you are suggesting is that I shape, sanitize, omit portions of my reasoning and explanation to the attorney general for political reasons,” Hur said.

The back and forth was longer than that and my take was that Hur knew he was on the spot and didn’t like it one bit. Because Schiff was right. He (Hur) KNEW his characterization of President Biden would be released because he KNEW that AG Garland would release the report as written and without any reshaping via press conference or his own summary by every AG except for Biliruben Barr and the Mueller report.  His sitting there trying to pretend he didn’t believe his commentary would immediately become known and a HUGE story was at best dissembling and frankly a bald-faced lie.

That’s the heart of the matter. Hur could well have been far more circumspect in his description of President Biden’s memory and demeanor. Even as I write this a GOPer commends Hur for doing what he did, even using the word “brazen” because as he said Hur knew it would become public. Of course this GOP asswipe prefaced that with claiming Biden is of such feeble mind those around him should have a conservator appointed to manage his care!  He literally said that and more. My point is that even the freaking GOP admits what Schiff confronted Hur with – that making the comments he did was a political attack to call into question President Biden’s fitness to serve.

That’s not the biggest thing however. Much has been made over Hur citing the President not knowing when his son Beau died. Well, it turns  out that’s not quite true now that the transcript has been released. (Jordan is pissed that it was only released this morning – not enough time to cherry pick but he also maybe should be careful what he wished for) Anyway much hay has been made by conservatives as they fell on their fainting couches over how Biden couldn’t remember when his son died. As someone who experienced the death of both parents as well as a non-related father figure before the age of 23, and with ten years experience working in a funeral home and cemeteries I can assure you grief is a process. And being suddenly hit with painful memories often throws someone off for a minute.

Here’s the thing though. This article by AP which itself engages in a bit of misdirection includes something Democrat Madeleine Dean brought up – that according to the transcript Biden DID know and cite the date his son Beau died!  Hur, who since he chose to resign yesterday (and no longer be constrained by DOJ policy in his testimony) was probably stunned to learn the transcript was being released this morning. I’m guessing but I believe he had hopes of pulling a Barr stunt – further park his Biden was so foggy he couldn’t even remember details about his SON’S death! narrative. When he learned (perhaps not until the hearing started even) the transcript was out he was probably hoping no one questioning him would have a chance to read it. For such a smart guy he HAD to know they had staffers that were doing so!

Anyway, Dean hit him with Biden flat out saying his son dies on May 30 and wound up asking (later) that passage be specifically entered into the record. Hur had to sit there with egg on his face. I mentioned an article by the AP, and that even they tried to provide a bit of cover but first here’s the part of the exchange Dean referred to:

“What month did Beau die?” Biden mused. “Oh, God, May 30th.”

A White House lawyer interjected by saying, “2015.”

“Was it 2015 he had died?” Biden asked. When someone responded affirmatively, the president added, “It was 2015.”

There’s a reason I say the AP misleads some. They imply that the matter came up out of the blue, but it’s more complicated than that as they later admit. Context is everything.  When the report came out the WH said Hur mischaracterized the exchange, and noted that Biden was making an effort to help Hur understand his decision making process during the years before the end of his time as VP and when/why he decided to run for President. I probably won’t  have time for a deep dive into that transcript (there’s over five hours worth) until the weekend.  However, at least there’s now some context to which the AP article admits later on:

Beau died while Biden was serving as vice president, and his deep sorrow helped deter him from running for president in 2016, when Trump ultimately defeated Hillary Clinton.

Biden mentioned the death during an interview that Hur conducted on Oct. 8. They were discussing where Biden kept documents that he was “actively working on” at his Virginia home.

The president responded by skipping back a few years to talk about how “in this timeframe, my son is — either been deployed or is dying.”

I expect pundits will dig into this part of the interview now that the transcript is available and by this evening we’ll understand more. What matters though is that Hur seems to have fostered an impression of a guy so “out of it” (my characterization) he couldn’t even remember details about his son’s death when in fact the President did in fact remember. That and much more.

Hopefully this hearing will be over soon. It’s long since been reduced to Republicans painting a there’s no difference between what Biden did and Trump did narrative, and also that Biden is old and feeble minded while at the same time painting him as a scheming mastermind of an elaborate conspiracy. I know, those two things are contradictory but this is after all the GOP we’re talking about. The flip side is Democrats keep forcing Hur to repeatedly acknowledge he didn’t charge President Biden with any crimes because the evidence wasn’t there to do so. And just as importantly force him to admit Biden’s complete cooperation from the get-go, while comparing it to Trump’s obstruction.

My own opinion is that not having any type of criminal case Hur decided to be Comey 2.0 and issue if not a political indictment then at least hand his fellow Republicans a big plate of political sh*t to fling at Biden.

One last thought is a point I don’t think Democrats have made enough. Unlike an actual classified document, a memo Trump had asked Gen. Milly to write and which he (Trump) showed to that gal at Bedminster (you’ve heard the recording) with Biden’s biographer there were no actual classified documents at hand. No, it was his JOURNALS he was referring to. They contained a mix of purely personal matters, policy matters that were not classified and some thoughts about matters that were confidential. NOT “classified documents” much less matters classified as Secret, Top Secret and above.

Well, it’s over. The hearing mercifully concluded. Sadly, the aftermath and the GOP sh*t shooting machine is just getting warmed up.