EXCLUSIVE: Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney is calling for the Cabinet to “explore” the use of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove President Biden from office, following Special Counsel Robert Hur’s “alarming” report.
Hur did not recommend criminal charges against the president for mishandling classified documents. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security and foreign policy which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
BIDEN SAYS HIS MEMORY IS ‘FINE,’ HE IS ‘MOST QUALIFIED PERSON IN THIS COUNTRY’ TO BE PRESIDENT
Hur, though, described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur, throughout the more than 300-page report, said “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him” of a serious felony “that requires a mental state of willfulness,” and said he would be “well into his eighties.”
Fox News Digital obtained a letter Tenney, R-N.Y., sent to Attorney General Garland Thursday night, sharing her “grave concerns” following the report.
“After concluding that President Biden knowingly and willfully removed, mishandled, and disclosed classified documents repeatedly over a period of decades, Mr. Hur nevertheless recommended that charges not be brought against him,” Tenney wrote. “Special Counsel’s reasoning was alarming.”
Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney,R-N.Y. (Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Tenney added: “He recited numerous instances in which President Biden exhibited dramatically compromised mental faculties and concluded that a jury would be likely to perceive President Biden as a sympathetic and forgetful old man.”
Tenney said she “need not tell you that selective prosecution is morally, ethically, and legally prohibited.”
“We don’t prosecute or decline to prosecute people based on their personalities, or on the public’s anticipated perception of them,” Tenney wrote. “If Special Counsel finds that the evidence forms a reasonable basis to bring charges, he must do so.”
Tenney said the DOJ “cannot ethically bring charges against former President Trump because he has mental acuity and a forceful personality, and decline to bring charges against President Biden because of his cognitive decline.”
Tenney said Biden “needs to be charged, unless he is not mentally competent to stand trial.”
“Candidly, Special Counsel’s report makes a reasonable case that he is not,” Tenney said.
“Being unable to remember what position he held, and when, is exceptionally concerning. Being unable to remember when one’s child died – even within a time frame of several years – is perhaps more a more damning reflection of his mental impairment.”
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 8, 2024. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
Tenney went on to say that Biden “most seemingly lacks the ability to execute his presidential responsibilities.”
“So it is incumbent upon you to explore proceedings to remove the President pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Tenney wrote. “President Biden needs to be charged, or he needs to be removed.”
She added: “There is no middle ground.”
The 25th Amendment can be invoked by the Cabinet if the president becomes disabled to such a degree that he cannot fulfill his responsibilities.
Biden, on Thursday night, though, addressed the nation saying his memory is “fine” and defended his re-election campaign, saying he is the “most qualified person in this country to be president.”
“I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden said. “I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.”
Biden added: “My memory is fine.”
During his address, Biden also fired back at Special Counsel Robert Hur for suggesting he did not remember when his son Beau died.
US President Joe Biden answers questions after a long-awaited report cleared him of wrongdoing in his mishandling of classified documents but dropped a political bombshell by painting the Democrat as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“How dare he raise that?” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked a question, I thought to myself, what’s that any of your damn business?”
“Let me tell you something…I swear, since the day he died, every single day…I wear the rosary he got from Our Lady—” Biden stopped, seemingly forgetting where the rosary was from.
Biden became visibly emotional, and declared: “I don’t need anyone—I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away or passed away.”
Moments later, though, Biden transitioned to discuss the conflict in the Middle East. Biden referred to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as “the president of Mexico.”
But the president took a barrage of questions from the White House press corps, with some shouting and pressing him on whether he is fit to run for re-election.
“I’m the most qualified person in this country to be President of the United States,” Biden said, adding that he has to “finish the job I started.”
Meanwhile, Hur, in the report, said Biden, during his interview with the special counsel’s team, could not remember key details, such as when he was vice president.
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 09: Special Counsel Robert Hur (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” the report states. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).”
NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report continued. “And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”
“In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,” the report said.
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As for Biden’s memory, prior to the release of the report, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday defended Biden when asked about a gaffe in which the president said he spoke in 2021 with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl — who actually died four years earlier — arguing that misspeaking “happens to all of us, and it is common.”
That gaffe was similar to the one Biden made on Sunday when he claimed he spoke with François Mitterrand, a French president who died in 1996, at the same G7 meeting.
