Biden, an ‘elderly man with a poor memory,’ recounts speaking to dead European leaders
President Joe Biden on Wednesday twice referred to the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl instead of former Chancellor Angela Merkel while detailing a 2021 conversation at campaign events.
It was the second time this week that Biden had recalled speaking with a European leader who had died years earlier.
Biden’s gaffes Wednesday came at a series of fundraisers in New York as he described conversations he said he had with European leaders at a meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations in the U.K. in 2021, months after the Jan. 6 riot.
Biden said at both events that “Helmut Kohl,” who died in 2017, had asked him how he would respond if he read about people storming the British Parliament and killing officers “to stop the election of a prime minister.” Merkel attended the 2021 summit in the U.K. [Continue reading…]
Special counsel Robert Hur on Thursday released a 388-page report on President Biden’s retention of classified material, finding the president frequently showed limitations with his memory and recall.
While the report concluded no charges should be brought against the president, its language describing Biden, 81, is likely to be campaign fodder for Republicans who have repeatedly raised questions about the president’s ability to serve.
Some of the language came off looking like a gift to Trump’s presidential campaign.
In opting not to bring charges, Hur, who was appointed by former President Trump to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland in 2017, cited the shortage of evidence, but also how Biden would present himself to a jury.
“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,” Hur wrote. [Continue reading…]