I don't think it is fair to say that Biden isn't a criminal when it is a know fact that the only reason for not being prosecuted was because they believed biden to be to cognitively unfit to stand trial.
That wasn't the reason.
From
Special Counsel Hur's report:
However, for the reasons summarized below, we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The reasons, in detail:
Nevertheless, we do not believe this evidence is sufficient, as jurors would
likely find reasonable doubt for one or more of several reasons. Both when he served
as vice president and when the Afghanistan documents were found in Mr. Biden's
Delaware garage in 2022, his possession of them in his Delaware home was not a
basis for prosecution because as vice president and president, he had authority to
keep classified documents in his home. The best case for charges would rely on Mr.
Biden's possession of the Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home in February
2017. when he was a private citizen and when he told his ghostwriter he had just
found classified materiaL
Several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges. For
example, Mr. Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his
Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after. This could convince
some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully. When Mr. Biden told
his ghostwriter about finding ''all the classified stuff downstairs," his tone was
matter-of-fact. For a person who had viewed classified documents nearly every day
for eight years as vice president, including regularly in his home, finding classified
documents at home less than a month after leaving office could have been an
unremarkable and forgettable event. Notably, the classified Afghanistan documents
did not come up again in Mr. Biden's dozens of hours of recorded conversations with
the ghostwriter, or in his book. And the place where the Afghanistan documents were
eventually found in Mr. Biden's Delaware garage-in a badly damaged box
surrounded by household detritus-suggests the documents might have been
forgotten.
In addition. 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. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the
government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely
convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting
willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires.
Another viable defense is that Mr. Biden might not have retained the classified
Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home at all. They could have been stored, by
mistake and without his knowledge, at his Delaware home since the time he was vice
president, as were other classified documents recovered during our investigation.
This would rebut charges that he willfully retained the documents in Virginia.
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. We searched for
such additional evidence and found it wanting. In particular, no witness, photo, email,
text message, or any other evidence conclusively places the Afghanistan
documents at the Virginia home in 2017.
In addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations
for the documents that we cannot refute. When Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter he
"just found all the classified stuff downstairs," he could have been referring to
something other than the Afghanistan documents, and our report discusses these
possibilities in detail.
This is the part you seem to be misremembering:
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. 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.
We conclude the evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to
recommend prosecution of Mr. Biden for his retention of the classified Afghanistan
documents.
So, no. Special Counsel Hur did
not think President Biden was "cognitively unfit to stand trial." He stated, clearly, that there wasn't evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and he did not believe a jury would convict him.
-- A2SG, just so we're clear on the facts.....
