Below is a slightly expanded version of my New York Post column on the report that President Joe Biden, not Special Counsel Robert Hur, raised the death of Beau Biden during his interview. The report, now confirmed by various media outlets, suggests that the President lied to the press and the public in his controversial press conference after the release of the Special Counsel’s findings.
Here is the column:
In his press conference following the Special Counsel report on his retention of classified documents, President Joe Biden lashed out at Special Counsel Robert Hur over allegations that he has such “diminished faculties” that it would be difficult to criminally charge him. One of the key and scripted moments was Biden angrily denouncing Hur for raising the death of his son. The “how dare you” moment was eagerly re-played by many in the media who piled on the next day in calling the question outrageous, callous, and unprofessional. Now, however, NBC is reporting that it was not Hur but Biden himself who raised the death of his son.
In the disastrous press conference, Biden quickly went on the attack and asked “How in the hell dare he raise that?” Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
The NBC sources suggest that this was a knowingly false claim by the President and that he was the one who raised his son’s death.
If it is true, this is not something that the White House can simply correct with a few brackets rewrites. The corrected version would read “How in the hell [could I] raise that. When I [raised] the question I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
It would make referencing recent conversations with dead foreign leaders look like relative moments of clarity.
While we will have to await the spin, the report (if true) suggests that the President is either mentally diminished or openly deceptive in such moments. The latter seems most likely. Biden clearly went to the podium intending to make this attack on Hur. That means that it was likely vetted by his staff.
Moreover, the press conference was inundated by false claims from the President. He suggested that the Special Counsel did not find willful retention of material. He not only did so but repeatedly said so in the report. He claimed that he did not show classified material to third parties. Not only did the Special Counsel say that he did, but there is a witness to that fact. He said that he kept material in locked drawers or drawers capable of being locked. The Special Counsel showed actual pictures of ripped boxes holding such material in his garage.
Once again, it is hard to see how these false claims were made without the prior review of Biden’s staff. The President famously works off teleprompters and scripts. The staff also did not correct the record on any of these false claims immediately after the press conference despite being demonstrably untrue.
Ironically, the White House may have to claim that the President was simply confused in a press conference called to deny such chronic confusion. It has already had to spin out of the President confusing the presidents of Egypt and Mexico in the same press conference.
Yet, in support of the diminished capacity defense, the President continues to make false claims about his son Beau, including repeated claims that Beau died in the Iraq War. He actually died at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland from glioblastoma, the most prevalent form of brain cancer, in May 2015 — six years after he returned from Iraq.
Of course, an enabling media quickly took the lead from the White House and lashed out at Hur. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California objected “I do think the special counsel’s gratuitous mention of Beau Biden, whatever you think of the rest, but to talk about someone’s dead son and to put that in … what is this country coming to that we’re politicizing that?”
In the media, there was outrage. MSNBC’s Jennifer Palmieri asked:
“Why was the special counsel asking him about Beau’s death, right? There is no legitimate answer for why he would do that, and in an interview that happened in October, months and months and months after the special counsel began their work. Unless they were trying to trip him up, rattle him, gain oppo, right? I mean, I think it is just that, the fundamental question of, why would you ask him about Beau’s death, raises the question about the legitimacy of the entire line of questioning,”
MSNBC host Al Sharpton joined the chorus of objections and Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, told MSNBC it was “beyond the pale.” . Likewise, former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder was positively irate:
“[T]he larger question is, why the hell are you asking that question? What does that have to do with the retention of classified documents? I’d like to think that at best, this prosecutor was extremely naive, a rube perhaps. He’s a Republican appointee, and he’s thinking, I want to have a life beyond what I’m saying in connection with this investigation. And that might have shaded what he put in the report.”
The First Lady was reportedly used by the campaign to raise money off of the outrage, stating “I hope you can imagine how it felt to read that attack — not just as Joe’s wife, but as Beau’s mother.”
She added “[w]e should give everyone grace, and I can’t imagine someone would try to use our son’s death to score political points.” However, if these reports are true, it was the President who interjected the death of his son into the interview.
The use of the White House to spread false claims about these investigations is a highly precarious practice. It can be the thing that impeachments are made off. Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, has been especially aggressive in attacking critics of the President and spinning these reports. He was recently confronted about false claims in connection to the Hur report.
The use of White House staff to carry out an alleged disinformation campaign can raise alleged violations of the public trust and misuse of federal staff and resources. Such allegations have been included in past articles of impeachment and would be most serious in relation to the ongoing investigation into influence peddling by the Biden family. In the. most recent controversy, the aggressive effort of the White House Counsel’s office to shape the coverage led to a rare rebuke from the White House Correspondents Association.
The coordinated campaigns can also bootstrap earlier alleged violations into Biden’s presidency. For example, the House is pursuing allegations of corruption stemming from Biden’s time as Vice President and the period in which he was a private citizen before running in 2016. Using federal personnel like Sams to spread or repeat false claims could make such allegations “evergreen” in tying them to contemporary ‘in office” conduct.
In other words, the White House has to be careful that the effort to spin out of scandal only results in spinning into an impeachment.
