CNN commentator Scott Jennings criticized Democrats on Tuesday over their repeated “attacks” on Special Counsel Robert Hur.
Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, during which congressional Democrats pressed him on his assessment of President Joe Biden as a “well-being elderly man with a poor memory” and his decision not to criminally charge the president for mishandling classified documents.
“I thought the attacks on him by [Democratic Reps.] Hank Johnson and Adam Schiff were particularly egregious,” Jennings said. “This guy’s obviously a public servant. He’s not there for partisan political reasons. To portray him as otherwise was beyond the pale. My takeaway is him saying, ‘I did not exonerate Biden’ — that was the main pushback of Democrats after the report came out, that Biden was exonerated. He put that to bed today.”
“The transcripts that came out today do show Biden did have a lot of memory lapses. Hur told the truth about that,” Jennings added.
“He also confirmed that the White House tried to get the Department of Justice to change his report after he wrote it and after it came out … And one crucial thing: Joe Biden lied in his press conference when this came out,” Jennings continued. “He said, ‘I’ll guarantee you, I didn’t disclose any classified information to my ghostwriter.’ Hur made clear today [that] they have a tape of all this. He told his ghostwriter about the material. He told him where the classified information was stored. It’s fairly obvious that the evidence shows Biden misled the American people about this.”
CNN’s Van Jones said Republicans scored a victory by creating an “equivalence” between Biden’s handling of classified documents and former President Donald Trump’s, for which the GOP frontrunner is facing criminal charges. (RELATED: Turley Says Democrats Appeared ‘Delusional’ During Hearing)
During the hearing, Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff accused Hur of being “deeply prejudicial” and said he was being “naïve” to believe that his report would not be weaponized against Biden.
Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal repeatedly claimed that Hur’s report “exonerated” Biden, which the special counsel denied.
“You exonerated him,” Jayapal said during the hearing.
“I did not exonerate him,” Hur responded. “That word does not appear in the report, congresswoman.”
Hur said in his report that he did not press charges against Biden, despite finding evidence that he knowingly kept classified documents in his private home, because he felt a jury would likely perceive the president as a “well-meaning” old man with a “poor memory.”
A transcript of the report found that Biden falsely recounted Hur’s interview with him when he told reporters during a surprise press conference that Hur questioned him about his son’s death. The transcript shows that it was the president, not Hur, who brought up Beau Biden’s death.