Republicans seize on special counsel's remarks on Biden's memory

In the wake of special counsel Robert Hur's report criticizing President Joe Biden's handling of classified materials, Republicans have seized on his remarks indicating the president struggled with his memory throughout the investigation.

While Republicans have long criticized Biden's mental fitness for office, pointing to an array of awkward gaffes and apparent memory lapses in public. Hur's report indicated that "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."

"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 concluded. That line appears poised to fuel Republican attacks, with the Republican National Committee highlighting the characterization.

pic.twitter.com/Nq3UVWcW06

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2024

The RNC Research account subsequently posted a series of clips in which Biden appeared to either misspeak or get confused.

Hur's conclusions come in the wake of other memory-related gaffes from the president. On Sunday, Biden confused French President Emmanuel Macron with former President François Mitterrand. who died nearly three decades ago. On Wednesday, he twice claimed to have spoken with the late German Chancellor Helmut Kohl shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Kohl died in 2017.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.