The Biden clan took an uppercut in the political ring. All that remains is to get up and try to send your opponent into the ropes. “Free” and “inappropriate” comments, “politically motivated”: the American president’s inner circle tried, Friday, February 10, to counterattack after the devastating comments of a magistrate on the failing memory of the American president. The most pugnacious reaction came from Vice President Kamala Harris who attacked the “political motivations” of special prosecutor Robert Hur. The latter, in a 388-page investigation report made public Thursday, relating to a matter of confidential documents, described the 81-year-old Democrat as an “elderly man with a bad memory”.
Recalling having been a California prosecutor herself, Kamala Harris asserted that these comments were “gratuitous, incorrect and inappropriate”. “We should demand a higher level of moral integrity,” the vice-president also said. A White House spokesperson, Ian Sams, agreed with Kamala Harris on the question of political motive. He suggested that the magistrate, a Republican, may have felt pressure leading him to go “beyond his duties” in writing his report, nine months before the presidential election. And all the more so since the special prosecutor decided not to prosecute the Democratic president.
Who is Robert Hur? He was appointed in January 2023 to investigate the discovery of confidential documents dating from the time when Joe Biden was vice-president of Barack Obama (2009-2017) in his residence in Wilmington (Delaware) as well as in a former office. Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman, whose state will be decisive for the November election, denounced an operation led by a prosecutor “appointed by Trump” in order to “smear” Joe Biden. Not all those close to the Democrat have ventured onto this politically slippery terrain, while the former Republican president, criminally charged four times, continues to cry about the use of justice against him.
Repeated blunders
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre chose the personal register: “I have known this president since 2009. He was not only my boss, but also my mentor. And no one in this building would tell you what we saw (in the special prosecutor’s report) about his memory.” Robert Hur wrote that a jury would give the benefit of the doubt to “a sympathetic, well-intentioned older man with a poor memory.” He also assured that the president, during an interrogation, no longer remembered exactly the year of the death of his eldest son Beau.
“How the hell does he dare?” Joe Biden, for whom this is an extremely painful subject, retorted Thursday evening during a televised speech. “I mean well, I’m an old man and I know what I’m doing, dammit. I don’t have memory problems,” he tried to defend himself, barely containing his frustration. But this hastily organized intervention did not convince everyone. “This is not the way to do it,” commented a Democratic elected official, Adam Smith. “He was angry, there was no clear intention, it didn’t go well.”
To make matters worse, Joe Biden made one of his usual blunders on Thursday evening. Asked about the situation in the Gaza Strip, he referred to “the president of Mexico, Sissi.” He wanted to talk about Egyptian head of state Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Holy bread for Donald Trump, 77, who will in all likelihood face Joe Biden again in November, and who has been attacking him for a long time already on the grounds of mental and physical vigor.
A “remote-controlled operation” by Trump
Friday evening, in front of a crowd of members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) gun lobby in Pennsylvania, the former Republican president said about his Democratic successor in the White House: “I don’t think he knows that he is alive.” The tycoon and tribune also published on his Truth Social network a false map of the Middle East, on which the name of Mexico replaces that of Egypt. At the bottom of the infographic is this note: “Source: Joe Biden”. In January, Donald Trump, who also has moments of confusion, without this causing as much debate as the age of his rival, published a mocking campaign clip, based on unfavorable images of his rival. The video depicts the White House as a comfortable “retirement home” where “residents feel like presidents.”
Part of the American press has not been kind to Joe Biden. Columnists drive the point home when some take to his defense. Example with the Miami Herald which asks Democrats to choose a younger candidate for the November 2024 presidential election. In contrast, the journalist from the American daily New York Times Robert Krugman points the finger at special prosecutor Robert Hur’s “remote operation” to harm the Democratic president. One thing is certain: the media have not finished debating the great age of the head of the White House.