Highlights + key moments | Special Counsel Robert Hur testifies on Biden classified docs

Highlights + key moments | Special Counsel Robert Hur testifies on Biden classified docs

Special Counsel Robert Hur is defending his report before Congress that President Joe Biden should not face criminal charges over retaining classified documents. The special counsel stood by his assessment of the president’s memory as “accurate and fair.”

The hearing has ended, but there’s lots to catch up on. See what you missed below and follow the AP’s latest coverage.

Robert Hur, the special counsel who impugned Joe Biden’s age and competence in his report on how the president handled classified documents, testified Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Here’s what to know:

 
Watch the full hearing

The special counsel who impugned the president’s age and competence in his report on how Joe Biden handled classified documents will himself be up for questioning this week.

 
Democrats and Republicans used the hearing as a vehicle to attack the other party’s presidential candidate

The strategy was clear from the opening moments. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, played a lengthy clip of a Biden press conference where he responded to Hur’s report but accidentally referred to Egypt’s leader as “the president of Mexico.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler responded with a sizzle reel of Trump struggling to remember things or messing up names.

Other Democrats also saw an opportunity to bring up Trump’s legal troubles beyond those involving classified documents. Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, asked Hur whether he uncovered evidence that Biden paid hush money to a porn actress or former Playboy model. (“No,” Hur replied.)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in shown on the video screen behind. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in shown on the video screen behind. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

 
Biden told Hur the same old stories

The transcript of Biden’s interviews with the special counsel shows how Biden revisited some of his most oft-told tales with the investigators who questioned him.

There’s the one about how he decided to run for president following the violence at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. “And then a young woman got killed, and I spoke to her mom,” Biden said. “And that’s when I decided that I’ve got to run. I’ve got to be involved, because I thought, presumptuous of me, that I was the antithesis of everything that this guy stood for, and I could beat him.”

Later, he told investigators the story of his trip to Mongolia when he was vice president, where he got handed a bow and arrow during a demonstration of an invasion of yore. “Pure luck, I hit the goddamn target.”

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, center left, accompanied by Mongolian Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold, center right, tries out an archery during their tour at Mini Nadam or Mongolian wrestling performance in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, Monday, Aug. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, center left, accompanied by Mongolian Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold, center right, tries out an archery during their tour at Mini Nadam or Mongolian wrestling performance in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, Monday, Aug. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

And there was the story of his son Beau’s death, which helped propel Biden back into public life and inspired the title of his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” As Beau Biden was dying of brain cancer, he asked for a minute of his father’s time, Biden recalled.

And that’s when Beau said, according to the president, “Promise me, dad. You have to stay engaged, promise me.”

 
Hur could not conclude that Biden willfully kept documents

Republican lawmakers appeared repeatedly aghast that Hur could have recommended against prosecution, particularly given the haphazard storage of classified documents.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, questions Special Counsel Robert Hur during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, questions Special Counsel Robert Hur during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

But Hur repeatedly reminded committee members that the most relevant statute at issue in the investigation requires that the unlawful retention of national defense information be willful — in other words, that it’s done with criminal intent. It’s a high standard that investigators in some other high-profile probes have not met, such as in the Hillary Clinton email inquiry.

Hur did say in his report that he had uncovered evidence to support the idea of willful retention, but repeatedly noted he had not found enough to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

 
And with that, we’ll adjourn

Nearly five hours later, Jordan pounded the gavel to adjourn the hearing and release Hur from his long day of interrogation. The room was nearly empty when the hearing closed, with only one Democrat and two Republicans left on the dais.

 
‘I’ve lost count’

Republicans continuously honed in on one specific detail outlined in Hur’s report: the fact that Biden’s classified documents were found in a number of locations over several of his properties.

At one point, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan asked Hur if he had a total for the number of locations prosecutors accounted for and the special counsel responded, “I’ve lost count.”

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

 
AP-NORC Poll: About 6 in 10 Americans doubt the mental capability of Biden and Trump

Central to today’s line of questioning on both sides of the aisle is whether or not President Biden and former President Trump are mentally fit for office.

According to a new AP-NORC poll conducted in late February, prior to Biden’s State of the Union address, 63% of U.S. adults were “not very confident” or “not at all confident” that Biden has the mental capability to serve effectively as president. A slightly smaller but similar share (57%) were not confident in Trump’s mental capability. Biden, though, faced greater concern from independents about his acuity and memory: 80% were not confident in Biden’s mental abilities, while 56% were not confident in Trump’s.

Biden’s base was also more worried about their likely nominee’s mental capacity than Trump’s. Only 40% of Democrats said they were extremely or very confident in Biden’s mental abilities, while 59% of Republicans said they were extremely or very confident in Trump’s mental abilities.

 
And we’re back
Staff place a name placard for Special Counsel Robert Hur ahead of a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Staff place a name placard for Special Counsel Robert Hur ahead of a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

The House Judiciary Committee is back questioning Robert Hur, the special counsel who found President Biden should not face criminal charges for his handling of classified documents.

This hearing has been going on for roughly four hours, but there are still about four more members who have questions to ask.

 
The committee is breaking — but they’re not done yet

Nearly four hours into the grilling of former Special Counsel Robert Hur, the House Judiciary Committee has taken a recess so members can cast unrelated votes.

Lawmakers are expected to return later this afternoon and spend at least another hour questioning Hur about his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Several members have still not completed their allotted time for questioning.

 
Three hours in, a kudos to Hur

During the ongoing, hourslong interrogation, Hur engaged in heated exchanges between members from both sides of the aisle, aiming to defend himself and the report he produced last month. Hur on Tuesday became the rare congressional witness to be vilified by both parties.

But there was one moment of slight reprieve for the federal prosecutor when Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., complimented Hur, saying that he disagreed with the White House’s assessment of his report as “shoddy.”

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., left, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, talk during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee with Special Counsel Robert Hur in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., left, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, talk during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee with Special Counsel Robert Hur in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Hur said of the White House counsel’s statement, “I disagree vehemently with that characterization of my report.”

“I also disagree,” Kiley responded. “I think it’s very well-written, well-considered and comprehensive.”

 
Hur spared Biden from criminal charges but refuses to call it an ‘exoneration’

After Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, called the report a “complete exoneration,” Hur cut in to disagree.

“That’s not part of my task as a prosecutor,” he said. “I did not exonerate him — that word does not appear in the report.”

Special Counsel Robert Hur reads from sections of the special counsel's report during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Special Counsel Robert Hur reads from sections of the special counsel’s report during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

The exchange bore some parallels to Mueller’s July 2019 testimony after the Trump-Russia investigation when he was asked, albeit probably rhetorically, by Rep. Jerrold Nadler whether his report had afforded Trump a “total exoneration.”

“No,” Mueller flatly replied.

 
It’s time for lunch

As the hearing inched closer to entering its third hour, the dais cleared out as lawmakers left to attend other legislative business and grab lunch. The questions from the members remaining in the room mirrored previous lines of questioning as each side of the aisle worked to further crystalize their dueling views of the special counsel report and Hur’s decision not to charge the president.

Hur remained apathetic, sitting on the edge of his chair throughout the hearing and keeping his comments to the conclusions made in his report as is standard Justice Department practice.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

 
Rep. Adam Schiff accuses Hur of knowingly igniting a ‘political firestorm’
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Hur has confronted substantial pushback from Democrats on his decision to include unflattering assessments of Biden’s mental acuity, with Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, saying he made a conscious decision to “make a generalized statement.”

Schiff told Hur that he could not have been so naive as to not have appreciated that such a characterization would have created a “political firestorm” and “would be manipulated by my colleagues here on the GOP side of the aisle and by President Trump. You understood that, did you not?”

“You were not,” Schiff pointedly told Hur, “born yesterday.”

Hur, for his part, bristled at the suggestion that he should have omitted relevant observations from a report for public consumption or that his work or decisions were affected by politics.

Politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps, my decisions and the words that I put in my report,” Hur said.

 
‘Two standards’
Special counsel Robert Hur takes his seat as he appears before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing on whether President Joe Biden had mishandled classified information after his time as vice president, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Special counsel Robert Hur takes his seat as he appears before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing on whether President Joe Biden had mishandled classified information after his time as vice president, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

For years, Republicans in Congress have claimed that there are two standards of justice in America: one for conservatives and one for Democrats.

It has been such a centerpiece of their political strategy that last year, upon taking the gavel, House Republicans established a select committee dedicated to investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government against Republicans. The decision by Hur to not charge Biden is seen by the party as a continuation of this standard.

“These two reports are the culmination in my mind of the Department of Justice’s two standards and an example, again, of the Justice Department being weaponized against conservatives,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said during his questioning of Hur.

 
Hur says he received no pressure from Attorney General Merrick Garland

He also said he got the resources he needed to carry out the yearlong probe and received no pressure to adjust either on what he found in his investigation or the conclusions he reached.

“The investigative steps that we took were my own. The judgment was my own. And the words in the report are my own,” Hur said. Garland didn’t remove anything from Hur’s report.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland arrive President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland arrive President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

 
Democrats home in on Hur’s Republican identification
Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Hur’s status as a lawyer who has ascended in Republican legal circles was not lost on Democrats.

After walking through Hur’s background, including service as a top Justice Department official during the Trump administration, Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia accused Hur of trashing and smearing Biden.

An angry Hur responded that he rejected that characterization and said that “partisan politics had no place whatsoever in our work.”

 
Biden regaled the special counsel with stories from his travels to Mongolia

Explaining the large number of “jumbo” photographs in his home from his time in public life, Biden told of the time he “unfortunately, embarrassed the hell out of the leader of Mongolia.”

During his 2011 visit to the Central Asian country, Biden attended a cultural demonstration with the country’s prime minister, which included wrestlers, dancers, horseback riders and archery.

“I don’t know if it was to embarrass me or to make a point, but I get handed the bow and arrow,” Biden recounted. “Pure luck, I hit the goddamn target.”

He continued: “I didn’t mean anything by it. I turned to the prime minister and handed it to him — the poor son of a bitch couldn’t pull it back. I was, I was like, oh, God.”

 
Lots of presidents have kept diaries

Hur found that Biden kept diaries containing highly classified information. But he wasn’t the first president to keep a diary in office. Diary-writing presidents include George Washington, John Quincy Adams and Ronald Reagan.

A portion of a page from a Harry Truman presidential diary, is shown at the National Archives in Washington Thursday, July 10, 2003. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

A portion of a page from a Harry Truman presidential diary, is shown at the National Archives in Washington Thursday, July 10, 2003. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Reagan left the White House in 1989 with eight years of handwritten diaries and apparently kept them in his California home even though they contained top-secret information, Hur wrote.

Reagan and his wife would sometimes read aloud from them after dinner. Reagan’s possession of the diaries was well known, but the Justice Department took no known steps to get them back.

Classified information was only taken out when Nancy Reagan decided to put them on display in 2005.

▶ Read more about presidential diaries here.

 
‘Remember Nazism?’

The hearing was meant to focus on a legal document, but Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, cast the stakes in lofty political and historical terms.

He scolded his fellow committee members for playing what he said were “stupid games” by trying to conduct a “memory test” for Biden — a president who he said had demonstrated his mental mettle through “soaring oratory” at the State of the Union address last week.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., questions Special Counsel Robert Hur during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., questions Special Counsel Robert Hur during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

He said that the country in this election year faces a choice between “democracy” and “tyranny” and that the “tyrants and dictators of the world” stand to gain from the spectacle of the hearing.

“Do we remember fascism? Remember Nazism? Do we remember communism and totalitarianism? Have we completely forgotten the sacrifices of our parents and grandparents and prior generations?” Raskin asked.

 
Meanwhile at the White House

It’s business as usual.

Biden is traveling a short distance up Pennsylvania Ave. to the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, where he will meet top executives and hold a roundtable discussion with rank-and-file members of one of the nation’s most powerful unions.

Later today, he is set to meet with Poland’s president and prime minister to discuss ways that NATO allies can increase military support to better thwart Moscow’s military activity in Ukraine.

 
The White House goes on the defensive

As lawmakers from both sides of the aisle interrogate Hur, the White House is beginning its defense of the president, responding to GOP allegations during the hearing in real time.

“Jim Jordan totally lying and misleading Americans,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The Hur report found there were “innocent” explanations for the documents being mistakenly taken.”

 
Republicans argue Biden ‘knowingly violated the rules’

“Why did he do it? Why did Joe Biden, in your words, willfully retain and disclose classified material?” Rep. Jim Jordan asked Hur, citing Biden’s decades of public service and access to classified documents. “I mean, he knew the law. He’d been in office like 50 years. Five decades in the United States Senate. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Eight years as vice president. He got briefed every day.”

Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Hur responded that the “conclusion as to exactly why the president did what he did is not one that we explicitly address in the report.” He has reiterated that there was not enough evidence to suggest Biden willfully retained the documents to prosecute the president.

 
Hur’s report sharply criticized Biden’s behavior. You wouldn’t know that from Republican questioning

Hur has repeatedly reminded GOP lawmakers that the principal statute at issue in the investigation requires evidence that a defendant willfully retained national defense information in an unauthorized location.

While Hur says he found some evidence of that — namely in Biden’s conversation with his ghostwriter — he concluded that there was not enough for a prosecution.

At one point, Rep. McClintock, a California Republican, asked Hur if that judgment shouldn’t be up to a judge or a jury. But Hur said that his job was to consider the evidence and make a judgment with respect to the strength of it.

 
Hur cites one Biden claim that investigators ‘deemed to be not credible’

In his report, Hur said Biden told investigators that when he described material in his notebooks to his ghostwriter as “classified,” he did not actually mean “classified.”

Biden said he may have used the word “classified” in the “generic sense” to refer “not to the formal classification of national security information, but to sensitive or private topics” to ensure his ghostwriter wouldn’t write about them, the report says.

But Hur said that was not believable. He noted that by that time, Biden had nearly 50 years of experience dealing with classified information. “It is not plausible that a person of his knowledge and experience used the term ‘classified’ in this context as a euphemism for ‘private,’” Hur wrote.

Special Counsel Robert Hur speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Special Counsel Robert Hur speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

 
Hypothetically speaking ...

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock started his questioning of Hur by asking the former special counsel if he himself could take home secret documents, store them in his garage and read portions of it to friends or associates, as the president had.

Congressman, I wouldn’t recommend it, but I don’t want to entertain any hypotheticals at this point,” Hur responded.

 
Hur described his report as confidential, but that’s only half the story

Though Justice Department regulations do indeed state that a special counsel must prepare a ‘confidential’ report to the attorney general, the department traditionally makes those documents public.

In other words, as Hur was working on his report, he almost certainly would have understood that the document was going to see the light of the day given past precedent — including the Trump-Russia report, which Hur at one point helped supervise.

 
Hur defends his comments about Biden’s memory

In his opening statement, Hur defended his decision not to charge Biden and reiterated that his commentary about Biden’s age and memory were “necessary and accurate and fair.”

“Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe,” Hur said. “I did not sanitize my explanation nor did I disparage the president unfairly.”

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

 
Democrats hammer home that the special counsel ultimately exonerated Biden

“There are just three basic points that all Americans need to understand about Mr. Hur’s report. Number one, the special counsel exonerates President Biden. The very first line of the report says it all,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said in his opening statement.

He went on to say that Biden also “offered complete and unhesitatingly cooperation with the special counsel’s investigation in the Justice Department.”

And lastly, Raskin added that Hur repeatedly “emphasizes that President Biden’s conduct contrasts sharply with that of former President Trump.”

 
A conversation between Biden and his ghostwriter takes center stage

Hur says his team identified evidence that Biden “willfully retained” classified materials. What evidence: an audio-recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in 2017 where Biden said that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows the first- floor home office of President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 20, 2023, during a search by FBI agents. In this main office agents found notebooks, including one Biden used to chronicle the Fall 2009 Afghanistan policy review. (Justice Department via AP)

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows the first- floor home office of President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 20, 2023, during a search by FBI agents. In this main office agents found notebooks, including one Biden used to chronicle the Fall 2009 Afghanistan policy review. (Justice Department via AP)

He was a private citizen then, working on the book “Promise, Me Dad” about the year his son Beau died. Hur says he also uncovered other recordings of Biden reading classified information out loud to the ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.

Biden, for his part, said he couldn’t remember saying he’d found classified information. Biden said he probably told Zwonitzer about a memo he wrote to then-president Barack Obama about Afghanistan but also stressed it shouldn’t appear in the book, according to the transcript of the interview.

▶ Read more about Biden’s ghostwriter here.

 
The elephant (not) in the room

Democrats wasted no time contrasting Biden and Trump’s behavior.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York is the top Democrat on the committee. He spent much of his opening statement focusing not on Biden but on Trump, whom he said had stored classified records “in the craziest of places” and obstructed government efforts to get them back. This was followed by a video of Trump forgetting the names of foreign leaders and details about his personal life.

Trump faces 40 felony counts in Florida accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents, including those about nuclear programs and military capabilities of the U.S. and other countries, at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Tuesday, June 13, 2023, after pleading not guilty in a Miami courtroom earlier in the day to dozens of felony counts that he hoarded classified documents and refused government demands to give them back. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Tuesday, June 13, 2023, after pleading not guilty in a Miami courtroom earlier in the day to dozens of felony counts that he hoarded classified documents and refused government demands to give them back. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

 
Hur keeps a straight and steady gaze

As an extended clip of Biden played in the hearing room, Hur looked straight ahead, away from the TV screens.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tuesday March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

 
The hearing is already unfolding along partisan lines

This is hardly surprising given the political stakes in an election year.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the committee, seized on Hur’s conclusion that there was evidence Biden had “willfully retained” classified information from his years as vice president before playing a clip of Biden’s initial response to the report.

Jordan largely glossed over Hur’s other finding that the evidence was not strong enough for a criminal case, except to note that Hur had written a jury might find the president to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

 
Protestors file into hearing room ahead of Hur’s testimony

Before the testimony began, demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war filed into the hearing room. The group, which included Jewish peace activists, stood in pink T-shirts and wore red hands to reflect the bloody war that is ongoing in Gaza.

“We sure wish Congress was as concerned about genocide as it was about presidents retaining classified documents,” one of the protesters yelled as lawmakers took their seats on the dais.

 
Oversight influence

The hearing will include surprise appearances by the top Republican and Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jamie Raskin of Maryland plan to make opening statements at the start of the hearing despite not being members of the Judiciary Committee.

FILE - In this Thursday July 29, 2021 file photo, House Committee on Oversight and Reform committee Ranking Member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., speaks during a hearing on voting rights in Texas in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - In this Thursday July 29, 2021 file photo, House Committee on Oversight and Reform committee Ranking Member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., speaks during a hearing on voting rights in Texas in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., speaks during the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 27, 2021. (AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik, Pool, File)
FILE - Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., speaks during the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 27, 2021. (AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik, Pool, File)

The appearance by the two men highlights how increasingly political investigations have become on Capitol Hill, with members of various committees wanting to get in on the action by defending their side of the issue. The Oversight and Judiciary committees have been working closely since the start of last year, joining forces to investigate the Biden family and the subsequent impeachment inquiry of the president.

 
And here we go
Special Counsel Robert Hur arrives ahead of a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Special Counsel Robert Hur arrives ahead of a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Hur is minutes away from his much-awaited testimony, where he’s expected to defend his decision to include an unflattering assessment of Biden’s memory in his report.

According to his prepared remarks, he will insist that his characterizations of the president’s memory were “accurate and fair,” noting that “what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly.”

 
‘I never was that organized’
This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows a box of files, found in the garage of President Joe Biden and annotating the "Facts First folder" where classified documents relating to Afghanistan were found in Wilmington, Del., during a search by the FBI on Dec. 21, 2022. (Justice Department via AP)

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows a box of files, found in the garage of President Joe Biden and annotating the “Facts First folder” where classified documents relating to Afghanistan were found in Wilmington, Del., during a search by the FBI on Dec. 21, 2022. (Justice Department via AP)

As Hur pressed Biden on the location of other notebooks he may have used as vice president, he acknowledged wishing he was more organized.

Biden told Hur he had “no idea” where other notebooks containing foreign policy notes could be. Biden said his wife Jill had encouraged him to keep a diary while he was in the White House “for posterity’s sake,” like Ronald Reagan. But Biden said he never managed to do so.

“I said, don’t make me like Ronald Reagan. I’d joke. Every night, he’d come home and he’d write a diary about what happened that day, who he spoke to, classified, unclassified, just everything he’d write in it, and he kept it all,” Biden said.

But, Biden said, “I never was that organized.”

 
Trump is posting about the ‘Biden Documents Hoax’

Trump, who has been charged criminally for the handling of his own classified documents, is hyping today’s “Big day in Congress for the Biden Documents Hoax” on Truth Social while mischaracterizing his conduct. “The DOJ gave Biden, and virtually every other person and President, a free pass. Me, I’m still fighting!!!”

 
Biden joked about his age with Hur

Biden has increasingly turned to humor to disarm political attacks about his age. And he appeared to do the same when special counsel Robert Hur opened the interview asking Biden to “put forward your best efforts and really try to get your best recollection” of events from several years ago.

“I’m a young man,” Biden quipped, “so it’s not a problem.”

 
Hur is no stranger to high profile political investigations

Hur held one of the most powerful jobs in the Justice Department during a tumultuous time in the Trump administration, serving as the top aide to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the department’s second-in-command.

FILE - In this Feb. 25, 2019, file photo, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein speaks at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 25, 2019, file photo, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein speaks at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

As the principal associate deputy attorney general, Hur helped run the day-to-day operations of the department in 2017 and early 2018. He also helped Rosenstein stay on top of Mueller’s progress in the Russia investigation. Hur held biweekly meetings with the special counsel’s team and reported back to Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general said in an interview.

Rosenstein said he hired Hur because he knew he would maintain a calm and steady demeanor and “approach cases in a nonpartisan way.”

Read more about Hur’s career.

 
Biden cracked joke after joke during his special counsel interviews, transcript shows

Biden cracked some jokes during his hours of interviews with the special counsel. During one exchange, he quipped: “The FBI knows my house better than I do.”

Later on, Biden said that he keeps binders of speeches that he’s given. “I just warn you all, never make one great eulogy, because you get asked to do everybody’s eulogy.”

And at the end of the first day of testimony, after Hur asked Biden detailed questions about the box of documents found in his garage where his prized Corvette was surrounded by workout equipment and boxes of memorabilia, Biden joked: “When am I going to get the rest of it cleared out.”

 
Biden’s claim about his notebooks echoes a Trump line

During his interview with Hur, Biden made crystal clear that he regards the notebooks where he made handwritten notes during his time in government as his personal property.

“They are mine,” Biden said at one point, according to the transcript.

That statement, when cited in the report, drew attention in part because it echoed Donald Trump’s repeated claims that classified material found in his possession belonged to him. Though Biden asserted that the information belonged to him, Hur’s team concluded that the notebooks were stored in an unauthorized location because they contained classified national security information.

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows the "Af/Pak 1" notebook with a Thanksgiving 2009 memo from Biden to President Barack Obama, found in a file cabinet under a television in President Joe Biden's first- floor home office in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 20, 2023, during a search by FBI agents. (Justice Department via AP)

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, shows the “Af/Pak 1" notebook with a Thanksgiving 2009 memo from Biden to President Barack Obama, found in a file cabinet under a television in President Joe Biden’s first- floor home office in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 20, 2023, during a search by FBI agents. (Justice Department via AP)

When Biden told prosecutors that “every president before me has done the same exact thing,” a prosecutor on Hur’s team retorted: “And I’m not arguing with you about that right now, Mr. President.”

 
Trump’s classified documents case presents more serious allegations than Biden’s, according to Hur’s report

Hur’s report carefully explained how the criminal case accusing Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort presents far more serious allegations.

FILE - This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and partially redacted by the source, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Department of Justice via AP, File)

FILE - This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and partially redacted by the source, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. (Department of Justice via AP, File)

Hur noted that Biden cooperated with investigators and agreed to searches of his homes. Trump, on the other hand, is accused of not only holding onto sensitive documents but obstructing justice “by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it,” Hur wrote.

Read more about the Trump classified documents case.

 
Hur told Biden he isn’t planning to run for office

While some Democrats have suggested that Hur might use the report to seek elected office, the Maryland Republican appeared to rule that out for his future.

During questioning about his assortment of political memorabilia in his home, Biden pointed to a fundraising item from his 2020 campaign and told the special counsel: “That is something, if you ever run for office, you’ve got to keep.”

Hur quickly replied: “That will never happen, sir.”

 
TMI, Mr. President

The transcript shows Biden joked to the special counsel that he hoped they didn’t find any revealing photos of his wife when special agents searched his Wilmington home.

“You left everything in place,” Biden said of the top to bottom searches. “I just hope you didn’t find any risqué pictures of my wife in a bathing suit. Which you probably did. She’s beautiful.”

First Lady Jill Biden listens during a roundtable discussion on women's health Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

First Lady Jill Biden listens during a roundtable discussion on women’s health Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

It was a flash of the humor that Biden brought to the interview, where he also expressed frustration that he doesn’t get to drive his sports car as president.

Biden’s comment had initially been redacted by the Department of Justice for unspecified reasons, but that determination was reversed before the transcript was sent to lawmakers on Tuesday.

 
Read the full special counsel report

But consider yourself warned: At 345 pages in length, it’s not exactly a beach read.

 
The transcript sheds more light on the Beau moment

One thing in particular about Hur’s report made Biden really angry, and it was that he mentioned the president couldn’t seem to remember when his son Beau had died. Hur used it as an example of the president’s memory lapses.

“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said of Hur the day the report was released. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”

The transcript suggests that the exchange was less revealing about Biden’s memory than Hur let on, and that Biden’s recollection of it during his emotional White House remarks was incorrect.

Hur asked Biden about where he kept the things that he was “actively working on” while he was living in a rental home in Virginia immediately after leaving the vice presidency in January 2017. And in that context, it was Biden himself who brought up Beau’s illness and death as he talked about a book he’d published later in 2017 about that painful time.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden, accompanied by his family, holds his hand over his heart as he watches an honor guard carry a casket containing the remains of his son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, into St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., June 6, 2015, for funeral services. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Then-Vice President Joe Biden, accompanied by his family, holds his hand over his heart as he watches an honor guard carry a casket containing the remains of his son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, into St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., June 6, 2015, for funeral services. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“What month did Beau die?” Biden mused, adding, “Oh God, May 30th.”

A White House lawyer then chimed in with the year, 2015.

“Was it 2015 he died?” Biden asked again.

Biden went on to recount in detail the story contained in his book, “Promise Me, Dad,” of how his late son had encouraged him to remain engaged in public life after the Obama administration ended.

 
The Biden interview transcript raises questions about Hur’s depiction of the president
This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, and marked with the number 1, shows a damaged box where classified documents were found in the garage of President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., during a search by the FBI on Dec. 21, 2022. (Justice Department via AP)

This image, contained in the report from special counsel Robert Hur, and marked with the number 1, shows a damaged box where classified documents were found in the garage of President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., during a search by the FBI on Dec. 21, 2022. (Justice Department via AP)

The Associated Press obtained a transcript of the Biden interviews, which were being turned over to Congress by the Justice Department on Tuesday just hours before the special counsel, Robert Hur, was going before the House Judiciary Committee to face questions about his investigation of the Democratic president.

Over five hours of interviews, Biden repeatedly told a special counsel that he never meant to retain classified information after he left the vice presidency. But he was also at times fuzzy about dates and said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.

Hur’s report paints a more textured picture of his discussions with prosecutors, filling out some of the gaps left by Hur’s accounting of the exchanges.

Read more about what’s in the Biden interview transcript.

 
WATCH: Biden’s response to the special counsel report

President Joe Biden welcomes the finding of a special counsel report that he would not face criminal charges in his handling of classified documents. (Feb. 8)

 
And what about Trump?

Biden’s political opponent, Donald Trump, won’t be in the committee room and the hearing isn’t about him. But look for Democrats to mention his name over and over again in an attempt to distinguish Biden’s actions from Trump’s when it comes to the mishandling of classified information.

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., June 13, 2023, after pleading not guilty in a Miami courtroom earlier in the day to mishandling classified documents. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., June 13, 2023, after pleading not guilty in a Miami courtroom earlier in the day to mishandling classified documents. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Trump is charged with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing government efforts to get them back. Prosecutors in that case say they’ve accumulated a massive body of evidence showing that Trump willfully broke the law.

Hur, by contrast, has said that though he found evidence that Biden had willfully retained classified information, that evidence was not strong enough for a criminal case.

 
Hur has formally resigned from the Justice Department

Ahead of his testimony, Hur has formally resigned from the Justice Department.

That’s to be expected given that his work has been completed and it’s the same step that two recent other special counsels, Robert Mueller and John Durham, had taken after submitting their reports and before testifying on the Hill.

Even so, don’t expect Hur to say too much more about his work than if he were still on the job as special counsel.