Top Justice Department official debunked WH's narrative trying to discredit the special counsel's report

The Justice Department debunked a key talking point that President Joe Biden's defenders have used to attack special counsel Robert Hur's damning report.

Biden, his campaign, and the White House have strongly objected to Hur's descriptions about the president's memory in his report. Specifically, Hur concluded that Biden is an "elderly man with a poor memory," citing Biden's inability to remember when his son Beau died and when he served as vice president.

Those descriptions, the president's defenders claim, are not only unfair and gratuitous, but they violate Justice Department standards.

However, in the eyes of the Justice Department, that's not true.

In fact, Biden's lawyers raised that exact complaint just last week. Letters, obtained by the New York Times, show that Biden's attorneys claimed that Hur's descriptions of the president "openly, obviously and blatantly violate department policy and practice."

But a top DOJ official wholly rejected that argument. The Times reported:

The next day, as the department was preparing to make the report public, Bradley Weinsheimer — the department’s senior career official, or nonpolitical appointee, who deals with ethics complaints or appeals of department decisions — wrote back rejecting their criticism. He insisted that the comments in the report “fall well within the department’s standards for public release.”

Weinsheimer, moreover, explained why Hur needed to include details about Biden's memory: because it is central to Hur's decision not to pursue criminal charges.

"The identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly prejudicial because it is not offered to criticize or demean the president; rather, it is offered to explain Special Counsel Hur's conclusions about the president's state of mind in possessing and retaining classified information," he told Biden's lawyers.

"The report addresses whether the president, as a private citizen, mishandled classified information in violation of criminal laws," Weinsheimer also explained. "This sits near the apex of the public interest. The report and its release, including the identified language, are consistent with department policies and practice."

The fight over Hur's report — and the transcript and audio from Hur's interview with Biden — is intensifying.

The White House, according to NBC News, is already strategizing how to spin the transcripts to push back against the narrative, which most Americans believe, that Biden is too old for the presidency and his mental acuity is declining. But the White House has not committed to releasing the transcripts in full.

Perhaps that is because the transcripts will confirm Hur's conclusion. Biden, moreover, has already misrepresented the interview.

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