Biden disputes special counsel report, says memory ‘fine’

President Joe Biden on Thursday evening strongly disputed new claims by Department of Justice special counsel Robert Hur that he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen, and that he had exhibited poor memory during an interview about that material.

“My memory has not gotten worse,” Biden told reporters in a nationally televised address at the White House hours after Hur released his report.

“My memory is fine.”

“I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden said, in response to a reporter’s question that noted Hur’s reference to the president as elderly.

“I’ve been president and I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation,” Biden said.

But minutes later, Biden referred to Egypt’s president as the “president of Mexico.”

Biden was visibly angry at Hur’s claim that he could not remember the year his son Beau Biden died, which the special counsel cited among other examples of evidence that Biden’s memory “appeared hazy” during interviews with investigators.

The president said that when he was asked a question about that year Beau died “I thought to myself [it] wasn’t any of their damn business.”

“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said of Hur. “I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”

The main legal takeaway from Hur’s report was the special counsel’s decision not to criminally charge Biden despite what Hur said was the president’s willful retention of classified documents and disclosure of some classified material to the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.

The material was retained in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home, and at an office in Washington, D.C., after he ceased being vice president in January 2017.

Biden’s lawyers have said the material began being found in late 2022, months after former President Donald Trump was indicted on charges related to retaining classified documents at his Florida residence after he left the White House, and to his obstructing efforts by…