Among the reasons Hur gave for not bringing charges was a concern that jurors would not believe that Biden knowingly kept the documents. The special counsel explicitly referenced the 81-year-old’s “significantly limited” memory – an incendiary topic in this year’s election – including his inability to remember what year his son Beau died.

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.

“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

On Wednesday at a campaign fundraiser in New York, Biden reportedly referred to the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl as talking to him about European concerns about the attempt to stop the certification of his 2020 election win, when he apparently meant Angela Merkel. Kohl died in 2017.

Previously on Sunday, Biden in Nevada apparently confused François Mitterrand, the former French president who died in 1996, for France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron, while recounting a similar anecdote about the events of 6 January and European fears over them.

Freightdog wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 3:55 pm With all due respect to that political system; isn’t this why there’s a Vice President? Someone to assume the position when the president is no longer competent.

Shouldn’t Kamala Harris be required to take the reins?
Who makes that call? Senate?

Freightdog wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 3:55 pm With all due respect to that political system; isn’t this why there’s a Vice President? Someone to assume the position when the president is no longer competent.

Shouldn’t Kamala Harris be required to take the reins?
Who makes that call? Senate?