White House officials on Friday called the special counsel's report on President Biden's handling of classified matters politically motivated.
Vice President Kamala Harris suggested the report was more of a political attack than an impartial legal document. Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office, called it “inappropriate” and “disturbing.”
Mr. During his tenure as Vice President, Attorney General Merrick P. Special counsel appointed by Garland, Robert K. These statements are part of an attempt to refute Har's statement. An office in Delaware and Washington.
That report, released Thursday, found that “no criminal charges are warranted,” a finding that was quickly overshadowed by the nature of the president's memory. Mr. The report said Biden, 81, was a “well-intentioned, memory-deprived old man” whose “facilities have diminished with old age.”
Given that a president's primary political vulnerability is that he is a diminutive figure, those narratives are some of the most damaging accounts of his age during his time in the White House.
Mr. Sams would not commit to releasing transcripts from Friday's interview — even if any confidential information was redacted. “It's a fair question, and there are classified things, and we have to do all of that,” he said. “We'll look at it and make a decision.”
The report sent the White House into immediate damage control, with the president holding a news conference on Thursday to push for its conclusions about his sanity. “My memory is good,” said Mr. Biden said he has battled questions about his age for years.
On Friday, Ms Harris described the report as “politically motivated”.
“The way the president's conduct was characterized in that report could not be more factually incorrect and clearly politically motivated,” Ms. Harris said in response to questions from reporters at the White House.
Some Democrats also rallied to the president's defense, including Mr. He accused Harr of bias and violation of judicial policy. Special Adviser Mr. He conducted 173 interviews with Biden and his top advisers, and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents.
Representative Daniel S. Goldman, a New York Democrat and former federal prosecutor, condemned “the special counsel's unnecessary and unnecessary swipe at the president,” calling it a “very partisan stunt.”
Biden's response, in some ways, is straight from a traditional White House playbook: When a prosecutor makes unsavory or damaging claims, counterattack by describing the prosecutor as a partisan.
But Mr. Biden's allies called the special counsel's briefings on the president's age gratuitous.
From the White House Counsel's Office, Mr. Sams, Mr. Expecting Republicans to attack Mr. Biden for not indicting him, Mr. To add to Biden's damage descriptions, Mr. Hur said he felt pressured.
“There's pressure to criticize, you know, otherwise you wouldn't,” Mr. Sams said. “You wonder why there are some of these criticisms.”
He added that the task of the special counsel was to determine whether any criminal activity had taken place. “He found out it wasn't,” Mr. Sams told reporters Friday. “This is the discovery. The case is closed,” he said.
But politically, the case is not closed.
The Republican National Committee quickly created a graphic with eight of the report's most brutal words — “good stuff, old man with memory loss” — pasted on a Biden campaign logo. Former President Donald J. Chris Lacivita, Trump's top strategist, said Mr.
Asked if the White House plans to develop its strategy to convince Americans that Biden is not too old to be president, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr. Biden said he will continue to travel. America to speak directly to voters.
Meanwhile, Democrats made sure to go on the offensive.
“People are really mad,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. He recently Mr. Appeared with Biden when he visited the state. “People think it's a cheap shot by a political figure.”
“It's designed to do what it does: people are trying to stir up trouble,” he added. “There are very sharp, intelligent people with wisdom and experience at 81.”
Mr. Referring to Trump, Mr. He noted that others around Biden's age faced 91 felony convictions.
Privately, some longtime Biden donors and supporters said the report and Mr. But there was no obvious outlet for that anger: they were Mr. Biden is expected to be the party's nominee, win or lose.
Peter Baker Contributed report from Washington.
