Biden says memory is ‘fine’ despite report questioning his mental accuity

(The Center Square) – A hostile President Joe Biden Thursday night insisted his “memory is fine” despite a special prosecutor’s report released earlier in the day that questioned his mental accuity.

“My memory is fine,” the 81-year-old Biden said during a hastily called address to the nation where he got hostile with reporters who asked about his mental fitness to serve as president. “Take a look at what I’ve done since I became president.”

The report in question was released by the special counsel who investigated Biden over his possession of classified documents after he left the White House during his term as vice president. The report noted Biden won’t be charged with a crime for his handling and sharing of the classified documents, but raised serious questions about his memory.

“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” according to the report. “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?’) He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. 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. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”

During his late Thursday news conference, Biden said he was interviewed by the special counsel shortly after the Islamic terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel and Israel responded.

“I was in the middle of handling an international crisis,” Biden said.

He angrily criticized prosecutors for including his memory issues in the report, particularly relating to his son’s death.

“How in the hell he dare raise that,” he said. “It has no place in this report.”

The 81-year-old president is seeking another four-year term. He would be 86 if he is elected to and completes a second term.

Biden’s memory issues were mentioned through the report released Thursday.

That’s not the only time Biden’s memory is mentioned in the report.

“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” according to the report.

Another part said jurors would be sympathetic given Biden’s memory.

“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence,” according to the report.

That was repeated elsewhere in the lengthy report.

“We have also considered that, at trial, 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,” according to the report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It 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.”