The review is not always true to the book, as any aggrieved author will testify — and nor, it turns out, is a report always true to the transcript. At least that appears to be the case regarding Special Counsel Robert Hur‘s report after his year-long investigation of Joe Biden‘s handling of classified documents and the transcribed interview Hur did with Biden for the investigation.
Hur’s report provocatively called Biden an “elderly man with a poor memory,” a line that launched a thousand GOP ships whose sails proclaimed Biden was mentally unfit for office. The transcript, however, appears in numerous places to refute Hur’s “gratuitous” assertions in Hur’s own words — especially on page 47.
That’s the page Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) focused on when he got to question Hur before Congress about the special counsel’s report. Page 47 of the transcript contains dialogue in which Hur tells the President directly: “You appear to have a photographic understanding and recall of the house.”
Swalwell asks Hur: “Did you say those words to President Biden?”
Hur answers: “Those words do appear on page 47 of the transcript.”
Swalwell: You said to President Biden, “you appear to have a photographic understanding and recall.” Did you say that?
Hur: Those words do appear in the transcript
Swalwell: Never appeared in your report
Hur: It does not appear in my report pic.twitter.com/jKJA6HCesd
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 12, 2024
“Photographic recall” and “poor memory” are widely considered opposites by sentient people. Hur — though he has degrees from Harvard and Stanford — evidently conflated them in his report, when he chose to emphasize his impression of Biden’s faulty memory rather than his impression of Biden’s “photographic recall,” words that do not appear in the report despite being in the transcript.
Swalwell questioned Hur about about the contradiction in the video above.
Rep. Dean: Very sadly, your report claimed President Biden couldn’t come up with the date of his son Beau’s death. In the transcript, you asked the president the date and he immediately said the exact date, May 30th pic.twitter.com/YR152EgNzg
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 12, 2024
Hur also came under fire for purportedly contradicting the transcript on the sensitive matter of the death of Biden’s son, Beau, and when it occurred.
President Biden immediately remembered the exact date that his son Beau passed away, despite Republican counsel Hur’s claim that he couldn’t remember pic.twitter.com/ug2WpNXmT0
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 12, 2024
Hur asserted in his report that Biden couldn’t recall the year, giving the impression that Biden had little memory of the event. The transcript shows Biden did respond with the month and day of Beau Biden’s death.
(Note: In the tweet above, his campaign says Biden “immediately” responded with the date, though the segment featured from the transcript doesn’t reveal the timing of his reply.)
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) questioned Hur about his mischaracterization of Biden’s recall in the video below.
Rep. Dean: Very sadly, your report claimed President Biden couldn’t come up with the date of his son Beau’s death. In the transcript, you asked the president the date and he immediately said the exact date, May 30th pic.twitter.com/YR152EgNzg
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 12, 2024