President Joe Biden could not recall when he served as vice president or when his son Beau died, according to a Special Counsel report released Thursday.
Department of Justice investigators say that “Biden’s memory was worse” than in previous interviews when he appeared in their office on Oct. 8, 2023. That day, the president “did not remember when he was vice president,” nor could he “remember, within several years, when his son Beau died.”
The report, which follows an investigation into the president’s mishandling of classified documents, raises serious questions about Biden’s mental fitness as voters worry about his age. Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden, stating that a jury would find the president to be “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The Special Counsel’s report details specific incidents where Biden appeared confused. Biden did not appear to know when his vice presidential term ended, asking investigators “if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?” and expressing uncertainty as to whether he “was still Vice President” in 2009.
Biden served as vice president from 2009 to 2017. Beau Biden died in 2015.
Investigators write that Biden’s “memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him” and that in interviews he spoke as if he “had a real difference of opinion with General Eikenberry.” General Karl Eikenberry was a top Biden ally in the Obama administration, who shared the then-vice president’s views on Afghanistan.
Biden’s poor memory, the report states, would likely be an argument “his attorneys would emphasize” in a courtroom. Biden’s mental “limitations” were a potential defensive hurdle which Justice Department attorneys would not have been able to surmount, the Special Counsel determined.
Shortly after the report’s release, Biden said in a statement that he “was pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach.”
“Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America’s security,” the statement reads. “I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that.”
Biden also says in the statement that he sat for “five hours of in-person interviews over two days on October 8th and 9th of last year,” one day after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.
Reached for comment, White House spokesman Andrew Bates referred the Washington Free Beacon to a statement from White House counsel Richard Sauber and Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, which denies that the “report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate.”
“The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses; a lack of recall of years-old events,” Sauber and Bauer say.
