All posts tagged: counsel

White House counsel to Johnson: Time to move on from impeachment

White House counsel to Johnson: Time to move on from impeachment

Published by skeptic

The White House on Friday urged Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to wrap up impeachment efforts against President Biden, arguing House Republicans’ months-long effort to uncover wrongdoing by the president has come up empty. “I write to you today because it is clear the House Republican impeachment is over,” White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in the letter to Johnson, which was also shared with the top lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. In his first-ever letter to the Speaker, Siskel laid out a dozen instances where witnesses interviewed by lawmakers have refuted allegations that the president profited from his family members’ business ventures. Siskel highlighted testimony from the president’s son, Hunter Biden, his brother, James Biden, and multiple former business associates of Hunter Biden who each said the president was not involved in their business dealings. The letter also noted two expert witnesses at the House GOP’s first impeachment hearing, Jonathan Turley and Bruce Dubinsky, who both indicated there was not enough evidence of wrongdoing to support articles …

“Can’t make it up”: Experts say transcript shows special counsel Robert Hur “lied” about Biden

“Can’t make it up”: Experts say transcript shows special counsel Robert Hur “lied” about Biden

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The full transcript of President Joe Biden’s five-hour interview with special counsel Robert Hur’s investigators “paints a more nuanced portrait” of Biden’s memory than the special counsel’s report, according to The Washington Post, which noted that “Biden doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be.” The transcript “could raise questions about Hur’s depiction of the 81-year-old president as having ‘significant limitations’ on his memory,” according to The Associated Press. Hur in his report declined to charge Biden, arguing that it would be difficult to convince a jury to convict with a memory that the special counsel described as “faulty” and “poor,” noting that Biden could not recall when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president. But Biden said exactly when his son died in the interview. “What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,” Biden said. When two others in the room chimed in with the year, Biden asked, “Was it 2015 when he died?” Hur soon suggested taking a brief break, an …

Special Counsel testifies about Biden probe

Special Counsel testifies about Biden probe

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Special Counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday defended his controversial decision to assess the “memory and overall mental state” of President Joe Biden during his investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents after he was vice president. “My task was to determine whether the president retained or disclosed national defense information willfully,” Hur told the House Judiciary Committee in testimony about his probe of Biden. “I could not make that determination without assessing the president’s state of mind,” Hur testified. The special counsel in his final report on the probe concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” which the special counsel wrote presented “serious risks to national security.” But Hur also said in that report that he decided not to criminally prosecute Biden for his handling of that material, in part because of the president’s allegedly poor memory, among other things. “I had to consider the President’s memory and overall mental state and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial,” Hur testified Tuesday. Biden and his lawyers …

Biden special counsel Robert Hur’s resignation from DOJ makes his testimony “even more problematic”

Biden special counsel Robert Hur’s resignation from DOJ makes his testimony “even more problematic”

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Special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated and declined to charge former President Joe Biden over classified materials found in his home and office, resigned from the Justice Department and will appear as a private citizen in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, according to The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg. Hur, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who was tapped to lead the Biden probe by Attorney General Merrick Garland, formally stepped down one day before his Tuesday appearance at the request of Republicans led by Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. He drew criticism from Biden and the Democrats for criticizing the president’s memory in the report even as he declined to charge him. Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann explained that the Justice Department “cannot give instructions” to a former employee about what he “can and cannot testify to.” “That makes it even more problematic from our perspective … if he was still a federal employee, DOJ would have to approve his testimony and they’d be involved in his appearance tomorrow,” a Democratic Judiciary Committee source told The Independent. …

Special Counsel Hur to testify before House committee: Live updates

Special Counsel Hur to testify before House committee: Live updates

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FILE – In this Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019 file photo, U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur speaks at a press conference announcing the indictment of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh in Baltimore. (Lloyd Fox/The Baltimore Sun via AP) Some Biden aides and allies have suggested that Hur, a Republican appointed to his role as U.S. attorney by Donald Trump, is a political partisan. Hur’s defenders say he has shown throughout his career that his work is guided by only facts and the law — not politics. A review of Hur’s professional life shows he’s no stranger to politically charged investigations. He prosecuted former elected officials as Maryland’s chief federal law enforcement officer. And as a Justice Department official, he helped monitor special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Hur was handpicked to lead the Biden investigation by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was aware of both Hur’s career history and his political affiliations. Garland has been determined to preside over an apolitical Justice Department as the agency probes not just …

What’s in the transcript of Biden’s special counsel interview

What’s in the transcript of Biden’s special counsel interview

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President Biden speaks to reporters about the special counsel report on his handling of classified documents in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Feb. 8. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP President Biden speaks to reporters about the special counsel report on his handling of classified documents in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Feb. 8. Evan Vucci/AP During more than five hours of interviews over two days last October, President Biden cracked jokes, went into great detail about the design of his Wilmington home and spoke with confidence about world events from more than a decade ago. At times, he was defiant. He also said some combination of “I don’t know,” “I don’t recall,” “I don’t specifically remember,” “I have no goddamn idea” and similar phrases more than 100 times during the deposition for a special counsel review of his handling of classified documents after he left office in 2017, according to an NPR review of the transcript. The 258-page transcript of the interviews conducted by …

Special counsel Hur defends Biden classified documents probe before Congress

Special counsel Hur defends Biden classified documents probe before Congress

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Special counsel Robert Hur will testify on his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Alex Brandon/AP hide caption toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Special counsel Robert Hur will testify on his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Alex Brandon/AP Special counsel Robert Hur defended his report and investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents in a Congressional hearing on the probe. Hur’s testimony Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee marked his first public comments about his probe that resulted in no charges against Biden but set off a political firestorm about the president’s age and mental fitness. “My assessment in the report about the relevance of the President’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair,” Hur said in his opening statement. “Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe.” In a nearly 350-page report released last month, Hur said charges were not warranted against Biden for his alleged mishandling of classified materials after he left the vice presidency. …

Lawmakers set to grill Biden special counsel

Lawmakers set to grill Biden special counsel

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Special counsel Robert Hur is set to testify on Capitol Hill this week, roughly one month after he published a controversial report that stopped short of bringing charges against President Biden for “willfully” retaining classified documents, but raised questions about his mental state and memory. The report sparked outrage on both sides of the aisle: Republicans seized on the description of Biden’s memory, using it as fodder to argue that he should not be re-elected to the White House, while Democrats slammed Hur for writing a “gratuitous” report that, they said, inappropriately commented on the president’s mental state. Those reactions will collide on Tuesday, when some of Biden’s fiercest critics and most loyal defenders grill Hur during a hearing that will dive into the president’s biggest vulnerability — his age — heading into the November general election. Also this week, the House will vote on a bipartisan bill that will force ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, to divest from the app or face a ban in the U.S. And Republicans in both chambers are headed on …

Trump lawyers, special counsel split over how much political thinking potential jurors should have to disclose

Trump lawyers, special counsel split over how much political thinking potential jurors should have to disclose

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WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith’s team are at odds over how much about their personal politics potential jurors have to disclose in a questionnaire for the classified documents case. The two sides’ joint proposed jury questionnaire agreed to most questions but noted their disagreements on some questions — including those about political affiliations. The defense proposed questions about whether a potential juror was registered to vote, registered with a political party and whether a potential juror voted in the 2020 election. The special counsel’s team objected to the questions in the Wednesday filing. This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records in a storage room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., that were photographed on Nov. 12, 2021.Justice Dept. via AP file The special counsel proposed asking potential jurors whether they believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump’s team objected to the question. Trump’s team is pushing to add a question about whether the potential juror views politicians …

Jack Smith filing uses Biden special counsel report against Trump: Not even “remotely similar”

Jack Smith filing uses Biden special counsel report against Trump: Not even “remotely similar”

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President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents is not even “remotely” similar to Donald Trump’s “deceitful criminal conduct,” special counsel Jack Smith said in a Monday brief. Smith’s team submitted the filing to challenge the former president’s argument that he’s being unfairly prosecuted by Biden-allied attorneys, Politico reports. In it, the prosecutors rebuked Trump’s attempt to compare his conduct with the president’s, whom special counsel Robert Hur chastised for retaining classified materials. Smith’s team noted, however, that Hur’s report also highlighted why only Trump is facing a bevy of criminal charges for his conduct.  “The defendants have not identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar suite of willful and deceitful criminal conduct and not been prosecuted. Nor could they,” assistant special counsel David Harbach wrote in the 12-page filing. “Trump, unlike Biden, is alleged to have engaged in extensive and repeated efforts to obstruct justice and thwart the return of documents bearing classification markings,” Harbach added. “And the evidence concerning the two men’s intent — whether they knowingly possessed and willfully retained such documents — is …