Biden docs hearing: Hur defends not charging president, but says he wasn't exonerated

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., picked up where his fellow Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson left off, accusing Hur of shading his report with his own "personal, prejudicial, subjective opinion of the president when you knew it would be amplified by his political opponent."

"You were not born yesterday," Schiff said. "You understood exactly what you were doing."

A visibly agitated Hur -- taking deep breaths, raising his voice, and attempting to speak over Schiff -- fired back, saying, What you are suggesting is that I shape, sanitize, omit portions of my reasoning and explanations to the attorney general for political reasons--"

"No, I suggest that you not shape your report for political reasons and that's what you did," Schiff shot back.

"That did not happen, Congressman," Hur replied. "That did not happen."

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., lambasted Hur for his references to President Biden's age and memory, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., quickly followed suit, appearing to catch Hur off guard and even flustering him as he defended his handling of his investigation and the language he included in his final report.

"You use your report to trash and smear President Biden because he said and in response to questions over a five-hour interview that he didn't recall how he got the documents, and you knew that that would play into the Republicans' narrative that the President is unfit for office because he's senile," Johnson said.

"Congressman, I reject the suggestion--" Hur attempted to respond before Johnson cut him off. Johnson then asked whether Hur was a member of the Republican Federalist Society, which Hur denied.

Hur did answer affirmatively to whether he was a Republican, which drew applause from one of the Republicans on the committee, Ken Buck.

Johnson then went further, suggesting that Hur wrote his report in order to damage Biden and evoke sympathy from former President Trump so he could secure a high-level appointment in his administration, should Trump be reelected.

"And you're doing everything you can do to get President Trump reelected, so that you can get appointed as a federal judge or perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice. Isn't that correct?" Johnson asked.

"Congressman, I have no such aspirations," Hur replied. "I can assure you and I can tell you that partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work. It had no place in the investigative steps that I took. It had no place and the decision that I made, and it got no place in a single word of my report."

Special counsel Robert Hur said that President Biden did not say that he believed any documents -- other than his own handwritten notes -- were his personal property, in contrast to former President Trump who has claimed multiple times that he held onto hundreds of classified documents because they were "my documents."

“We did not hear that from the president during his interview,” Hur said, responding to Rep. Zoe Lofgren who asked if Biden believed any of the documents turned over to investigators were, in fact, his own.

Rep. Jordan then began his line of questioning to Hur by pressing him over whether he ever determined what President Biden’s motive was in the evidence that he uncovered that he possessed classified documents.

“Congressman, the conclusion as to exactly why the president did what he did is not one that we explicitly address in the report,” Hur answered. “The report explains my decision to the attorney general that no criminal charges were warranted in this manner.”

Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, then sought to draw a connection between Biden’s efforts to secure money for a book deal following his vice presidency and Hur’s findings regarding his possession of classified documents.

“Pride and money is why he knowingly violated the rules,” Jordan said. “The oldest motives in the book, pride and money.”

Hur confirmed that his investigation found evidence “supporting those assessments” and also confirmed details from his report that the ghostwriter tasked by Biden with writing his book attempted to delete the audio recordings of his conversations with Biden.

More than an hour into his testimony, Robert Hur appears poised under intense questioning from both sides -- swatting away lawmakers seeking to leverage his testimony in order to incriminate the other party's leader.

As lawmakers invoke fascism and level accusations of a two-tiered justice system, the former special counsel is striking a decidedly measured posture.

He has not indulged Democrats' attempts to draw him into comparisons between Biden and Trump -- at times appearing to frustrate some members, including Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. And he has not taken the bait from Republicans seeking to draw out details that could paint Joe Biden's conduct in a more negative light.

As he promised in his opening statement, Hur has restricted his testimony to the confines of his report.