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| Now, let's get into that first story. | ||
| For the past couple of hours, we've been getting testimony from Robert Herr. | ||
| It is a congressional hearing where they're asking him about why Joe Biden was not criminally charged for retaining classified documents, for sharing information from classified documents, for stating to his ghostwriter, this may be classified, be careful. | ||
| And why the ghostwriter himself was not charged for destroying evidence that Joe Biden knew and willfully retained government classified documents. | ||
| This is an absolutely fascinating story. | ||
| Those that are familiar, just over a month ago, we got this report that Joe Biden was a doddering old man. | ||
| And because of this, we can't criminally charge him. | ||
| As Vice President, Joe Biden left office retaining in numerous locations, I think it's like five or six locations, lots and lots of national security-related classified documents. | ||
| They were not secured properly. | ||
| As I already mentioned, members of Congress have asked Robert Herr, the special counsel, why it is that he was not criminally charged. | ||
| Robert Herr, of course, says that Mr. Biden, President Biden, Is a well-to-do, well-meaning old man with a bad memory. | ||
| And there's no way that you can prove intent. | ||
| Here's where it gets interesting. | ||
| I think the Republican members of Congress have easily laid out how you can easily prove intent. | ||
| Like perhaps when, according to the report, Joe Biden said, these may be classified. | ||
| Be careful. | ||
| Knowing that he had classified information, that he was sharing it with someone who does not have security clearance, that is a crime. | ||
| It's not a crime for retaining documents, but you have to wonder why it is not being charged. | ||
| Now here's the best part! | ||
| Democrats are making a different argument. | ||
| Nadler, of course, jumped out and said, in your investigation, you found insufficient evidence that Joe Biden committed a crime. | ||
| And Robert Herr says, yes, which is insane and just plum not true, but it makes you wonder. | ||
| Adam Schiff joins the fray and says, you are a registered Republican and you added to your report that Biden had memory problems, which you did not need to add for partisan reasons because you are doing everything in your power to get Donald Trump elected. | ||
| Now, of course, many of us are probably making the assumption, especially those who watch a show like this, that Robert Herr, though he may be a registered Republican, is operating under a Democrat DOJ and will not bring charges against Democrats because it is the uniparty establishment and it's a two-tiered form of justice. | ||
| I believe that's the more likely outcome. | ||
| Though Robert Herr is a Republican, Republicans play this game all the time. | ||
| I must be honorable. | ||
| I could never do what the Democrats do, so Joe Biden will not be charged, but let's be real. | ||
| When you listen to this, I mean, Matt Gaetz's testimony, or not his testimony, but his questions to Robert Herr, Robert Herr's testimony, was absolutely fascinating. | ||
| Let's just make it simple. | ||
| Matt and many others go through all the different locations where Joe Biden retained unlawfully, and this is a fact, it is unlawful, classified documents. | ||
| Matt Gaetz says he doesn't think Biden or Trump should have been charged. | ||
| What I find fascinating in this trial, but in this hearing, that you actually have this, well I'll leave it to what Matt Gaetz just said. | ||
| How is it that either of them are being charged for this? | ||
| But what I think is really fascinating is that the document from Robert Hur, the report, actually plays this compare and contrast game. | ||
| And I'm getting frustrated listening to this because I'm like, look, we get it. | ||
| Joe Biden broke the law. | ||
| Charge him or don't, whatever. | ||
| But why is this hearing half about whether or not Trump was better or worse? | ||
| They say, well, the thing about Joe Biden, why we're not charging him is because unlike Trump. | ||
| And I'm like, well, what do you mean unlike Trump? | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You leave Trump over there in the other room. | ||
| Tell me right now. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Here's what Robert Hurst said. | ||
| Robert Hurst says that, let me pull up the story here for you. | ||
| Shocking memory lapses. | ||
| He had no idea what was going on. | ||
| Joe Biden showed himself to be completely out of it. | ||
| In fact, I think I have the, uh, the X post up here somewhere. | ||
| That, uh, is that, no, that's a Boeing thing. | ||
| Well, where, where are we at? | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| Dylan Houseman on Twitter. | ||
| Joe Biden literally said my Corvette go brr while Robert Herr pleaded with him to answer actual questions. | ||
| Once, here's what the tweet says. | ||
| It's a screen grab from a news report. | ||
| I believe from the official report. | ||
| Once, it was while lamenting that he could drive his vintage Chevrolet Corvette only the length of his driveway. | ||
| The other time was during a lengthy exchange over the torque of electric vehicles. | ||
| Quote, by the way, you know how it works? | ||
| Biden asks her. | ||
| It's really cool. | ||
| Her remarks, sir, I'd love to. | ||
| I would love to hear much more about this, but I do have a few more questions to get through. | ||
| Biden. | ||
| You step your foot on the accelerator all the way down until it gets about six, seven grand, then all of a sudden it will say launch. | ||
| All you do is take your foot off the brake. | ||
| The transcript then indicates, quote, makes car sound as well as laughter. | ||
| It's on my bucket list, her responded, before turning to questions regarding classified documents that have been discovered at the Penn Biden Center. | ||
| So as of the live stream we are doing here, The hearing is still ongoing and what we have from the post-millennial Biden transcript of classified documents interview reveals shocking memory lapses, said he had no GD idea in response to hundreds of questions. | ||
| Here's what's fascinating. | ||
| Joe Biden is clearly filibustering when he's being asked these questions. | ||
| He's clearly trying to deflect. | ||
| When he's saying, I have no idea, he is not actually saying he doesn't know. | ||
| He's avoiding incriminating testimony. | ||
| You know, look. | ||
| Let's say you're a guy and you rob a liquor store. | ||
| And the cops come to you and they, you know, get you and you're forced to testify. | ||
| Where were you on this night? | ||
| I don't remember. | ||
| Who are you with? | ||
| Hmm, can't recall. | ||
| Because that's the only way you get past it. | ||
| They can't argue you do recall. | ||
| Maybe we'll get to the point in the future where we can put, like, an electroencephalogram that will monitor your brain waves, and they'll be like, no, his recollection centers are lighting up, he's lying! | ||
| But that's the real reason Joe Biden's saying he can't remember. | ||
| Not because he's a doddering old fool, but because he knows he broke the law. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now here's where it gets interesting. | |
| Listening to the Democrats' statements about what the real motivations of Robert Herr actually are, and I'm like, maybe? | ||
| Seriously. | ||
| He's a Republican. | ||
| Now, I don't think Joe Biden should be criminally charged or impeached. | ||
| I think maybe two, three years ago, but I don't think so right now because we're what? | ||
| Nine months, not even nine months away from, uh, nine months, eight months from the election? | ||
| The American people will decide. | ||
| And Trump is very much ahead right now. | ||
| If Joe Biden is to be criminally charged, And that removes him from the presidential race. | ||
| I mean, Democrats might actually prefer that. | ||
| It allows them to bring in anyone else. | ||
| Impeaching and convicting Joe Biden would also have that effect. | ||
| Now, it's possible Republicans move for an impeachment maybe later on in the year, knowing that a conviction couldn't happen before the election, so instead of him being removed, they'll still have to run Joe Biden. | ||
| Perhaps that's the strategy. | ||
| But I gotta be honest, I mean, when the Democrats are arguing that Robert Herr didn't want to charge Joe Biden, but insisted on calling him a doddering old fool, I'm paraphrasing. | ||
| I mean, it makes sense. | ||
| If you were strategically trying to damage Joe Biden, what's a criminal charge pertaining to classified documents from several years ago going to accomplish? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| If he's convicted, it might make him look like the victim, but Like, Democrats are going to be like, oh, the Republicans are going after him, blah, blah, blah. | ||
| But you say, no, no, we're not going to charge him because he's senile. | ||
| Now you really, really hurt his chances. | ||
| And what would happen if he got criminally charged over something he did as vice president? | ||
| The argument would be this wasn't even as president and it was an accident or something like that. | ||
| The fascinating thing in this story is that Joe Biden told his ghostwriter explicitly, this may be classified, shared, I mean all of this is so criminal. | ||
| Well, let's read this report from the Postmillennial. | ||
| The testimony is currently ongoing, and this is actually a really fascinating hearing from Mr. Biggs. | ||
| One of the more fascinating things was Hank Johnson from Georgia, I believe he's a Democrat, and it would make sense, and he said that Robert Herr is trying as hard as possible to smear and defame Joe Biden so that Trump will appoint him when Trump inevitably wins because of the assistance that he's being given. | ||
| I find it fascinating, to be completely honest. | ||
| But that's the Democrats' argument. | ||
| Adam Schiff said, I'll paraphrase, you could have included in your report that based on Joe Biden's state of mind, we did not believe we could prove intent. | ||
| Now, what's fascinating is a lot of lawyers have posted on X saying, you don't need to prove intent to bring criminal charges. | ||
| You need to prove probable cause, a preponderance of evidence. | ||
| Joe Biden did retain the documents. | ||
| Joe Biden did transfer this information to individuals with no clearance. | ||
| He expressed to his ghostwriter he knew that he had them, that he'd found them, and that he had to be careful with them. | ||
| All the elements are there. | ||
| Leave it for a jury. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| See you on the tour! | ||
| So I wonder... | ||
| I'm I don't know that Robert Herr actually is playing any political games because if he really thought | ||
| That Joe Biden would not be found guilty and he really thought that he wanted to hurt Joe Biden or he was really aiming to hurt Joe Biden. | ||
| Criminally charging him would be the best move because it would put Joe Biden on the stand Joe Biden would then have to testify. | ||
| And I think the jury may actually conclude that Joe Biden, his brain is rotten. | ||
| And so you can't really find him guilty. | ||
| I mean, he did it. | ||
| We know he did it. | ||
| But where he is right now, are we really going to be served by locking this guy up? | ||
| That being said. | ||
| Perhaps it could initiate a 25th Amendment hearing, which could ultimately remove Joe Biden from the presidency. | ||
| So, perhaps that's why Robert Heard didn't want to bring about that issue. | ||
| The Post Millennial reports the transcripts of the interview of President Joe Biden in the classified documents case over a span of two days have been released, showing the multiple memory lapses, including when his son Beau died, forgetting when Trump was elected, and showing the president saying, I don't recall or I have no GD idea more than 100 times. | ||
| And let's not forget the moment when Biden deflective to say my Corvette goes, | ||
| Brr, and Robert, her is like, yes, please, I need to ask you more questions. | ||
| During her interview with Biden, the president, contrary to what he said in response to her | ||
| bombshell report in a press conference, brought up the death of his son first. | ||
| Thank you for your interest. | ||
| Quote, What month did Beau die? | ||
| Biden asked himself out loud during the interview. | ||
| The President recalled that May 30th was the day of Beau's death, but could not remember the year at the time. | ||
| Was it 2015 he died? | ||
| Biden asked. | ||
| He then also had to be reminded of the year that President Donald Trump was elected after he first asked if Trump was elected in 2017 instead of the correct year, 2016. | ||
| It's absolutely fascinating that this is where we're at. | ||
| We have this from The Daily Caller. | ||
| The news report was that Joe Biden did not know when his son died. | ||
| with Robert Hur during angry press conference, transcript confirms. The news report was that | ||
| Joe Biden did not know when his son died. Biden comes out publicly and says, that's not what | ||
| I said, you have no right to ask me that question! | ||
| And, uh, the testimony reveals Joe Biden himself said, what year did he die? | ||
| Hmm, I can't recall. | ||
| And Robert was like, he doesn't even know when his son died. | ||
| This is where we're currently at. | ||
| We have this from Brett L. Tolman. | ||
| Tolman is a executive director for Right on Crime, former U.S. | ||
| Attorney, says, Her report is incredibly damning to both Joe Biden and the DOJ. | ||
| For Biden, it exposes purposeful illegal retention and dissemination of classified materials which contained information important to national security. | ||
| For the DOJ, it exposes their hypocrisy and protection of one side. | ||
| Well, here we go. | ||
| Watch live. | ||
| I suppose we can pull up some of the testimony happening live right now, and that's why we are live. | ||
| And so, let's see if we can jump to... Are those quotes correct? | ||
| Here we go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congresswoman, if you have particular page sites for those quotations, I'd be happy to confirm their accuracy. | |
| Page six. | ||
| So we're jumping right now into the live hearing, and I don't know what quotes... Here we go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
With respect to the two quotes that are on the screen, In addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for documents we cannot refute, and we conclude the evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to recommend prosecution. | |
| I was just going to get to that. | ||
| And you concluded that, quote, the evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to recommend prosecution, end quote. | ||
| Those are your words in the report, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those words appear in the report. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| President Biden's counsel discovered a different set of documents | ||
| at the Penn Biden Center and voluntarily turned them over to the FBI. | ||
| Those documents contain national security information, but you determined that you could not, in fact, | ||
| prove that President Biden willfully retained those documents because, | ||
| quote, the evidence suggests that the marked classified documents | ||
| found at the Penn Biden Center were sent and kept there by mistake. | ||
| Therefore, we decline, we decline any criminal charges related to those documents, end quote, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The language we decline any criminal charges related to those documents | |
| does appear at page 311 of the report. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You also reached a similar conclusion regarding the documents found in President Biden's Senate papers at the University of Delaware. | ||
| This guy is such a lawyer. | ||
| Whenever he's asked a question, instead of saying yes, no, I agree or not, he goes, the report says yes. | ||
| It's almost like he didn't write it. | ||
| We're there by mistake, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That language does appear at page 325 of the report. | |
| So it seems to me that the crux of the report, the main story, is that you found insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that President Biden willfully retained any classified materials. | ||
| That is the story of this report. | ||
| And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The gentlelady yields back. | ||
| The gentlelady from Indiana is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I just thank you, Special Counsel, for being here in these challenging times, and I want to tell you a few things that is interesting for me. | ||
| You obviously could see that there is a motive, there is a legacy. | ||
| You obviously see that it was a willful retention of these documents, but it's interesting for me that when you talk about sympathetic, well-meaning, older man with poor, elderly man with a poor memory, It seems like every, you know, attorney would advise you to be sympathetic and be well-meaning, and it seems like the whole FBI needs to do, based on my hearings here, I need to do check on amnesia, because everyone says doesn't recall. | ||
| So it seems to me that it might have been something way more in his recollection than the typical I don't recall, because that's what everything's like. | ||
| That's what I've learned here. | ||
| So is there something more than that, that just He's not going to answer this question. | ||
| I'm not going to answer this question. | ||
| I'm going to answer this question. | ||
| Blah, blah, blah. | ||
| So another major factor in this testimony is that in the report, and Robert Herr has confirmed this, Joe Biden retained these documents intentionally to preserve and share his legacy with people who don't have access to classified information. | ||
| That is fact. | ||
| So another another major factor in this testimony is that in the report and Robert Herr has confirmed this, | ||
| Joe Biden retained these documents intentionally to preserve and share his legacy with people who don't have | ||
| access to classified information. | ||
| That is fact. In the testimony, Robert Herr says Joe Biden wanting to preserve his legacy. | ||
| Retained this information. | ||
| Now, if that's not willful, I don't know what is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just wanted to actually just comment on something, you know, Mr. Raskin mentioned about, you know, us not remembering communists. | |
| I actually grew up under communists, and I have a very good recollection of what it is. | ||
| And unfortunately, tyrants are on the rise, on the march, which he said. | ||
| Unfortunately, they've been emboldened by During your one year investigation, did you have communications with the White House and the White House Council in particular? | ||
| of justice is really now resembles, you know, a tyrannical government. | ||
| It's sad for me to see that. | ||
| But I'm going in with a really double standard what we have there. | ||
| But I'm going to yield to Chairman Jordan the rest of my time. | ||
| Thank the gentlelady for yielding. | ||
| Mr. Hurt, during your one year investigation, did you have communications | ||
| with the White House and the White House counsel in particular? | ||
| Yes. I think you had like I got five letters that they in and they communicated with you regarding your | ||
| investigation. | ||
| Is that accurate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We received a number of letters from White House Counsel's Office and as well as the President's personal counsel. | |
| Right. | ||
| They're either special counsel or personal counsel, I see, who signed the letters. | ||
| And did the White House get the report before the report was made public? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We did provide a draft of the report to the White House Counsel's Office and members of the President's personal counsel team for their review. | |
| I understand. | ||
| And did the White House then, once they got the report before it went public, did the White House try to weigh in with your investigation on elements of that report and, frankly, get the report changed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They did request certain edits and changes to the draft report. | |
| Yeah, I see that in the February 5th letter. | ||
| Did they only correspond with you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry, Congressman, are you asking if they corresponded with anyone else on my team? | |
| Once you gave the report to the White House, they sought changes. | ||
| I have one letter here that's addressed to you on February 5th, and they said, we're pleased that after more of your investigating, you've determined, you know, they respond to the report. | ||
| And then they asked, they disagree with your, they asked for you to change some of the things you had in your report, namely, The fact that the president's memory was not very good. | ||
| You remember that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Okay, but I also have two other letters. | ||
| One on February 7th to Merrick Garland, where they raised the same concern, and then on February 12th, where they go to the DAG. | ||
| Bradley Weinsheimer. | ||
| You familiar with those? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am familiar with those letters. | |
| Bradley Weinsheimer is an assistant, or associate deputy attorney general. | ||
| Right, associate DAG, the ADAG, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| And Merrick Garland, of course, is the Attorney General. | ||
| So you're familiar with the fact that they went over your head? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They were certainly entitled to write whatever letters they wished to Mr. Weinheimer and to the Attorney General. | |
| I just find that interesting. | ||
| The White House, they're communicating with you throughout this one-year investigation, and then the White House says, oh, we're going to go to the principal's office and we're going to talk about Mr. Herr's report. | ||
| Do you find that interesting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
As I said, they were free to correspond with whomever in the federal government they wished to correspond with. | |
| I did engage in numerous communications with them during the course of the investigation, and as is reflected in the Special Counsel regulations, the Attorney General did provide oversight of my investigation. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| I thank the gentlelady for yielding and yield back. | ||
| The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California for five minutes. | ||
| Oh boy! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman Jordan. | |
| I want to first say that the House Judiciary Committee is responsible for helping to enforce the rule of law. | ||
| Unfortunately, the actions of this chairman in ignoring a bipartisan congressional subpoena have damaged the ability of this committee to get information from witnesses and damage the rule of law. | ||
| Now, Mr. Herr, thank you for being here today. | ||
| Thank you for sharing your compelling immigrant story. | ||
| This is Ted Lieu from California. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That just goes to highlight how America is a nation of immigrants. | |
| I'm going to ask you a series of questions, yes and no questions. | ||
| They are not trick questions. | ||
| They're simply designed to highlight what you already found in your report, which is that there are, quote, material distinctions, end quote, between President Biden's case and Mr. Trump's case. | ||
| So here's my first question. | ||
| In your investigation, Did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to lie to the FBI? | ||
| We identified no such evidence. | ||
| Did you find that President Biden directed his lawyer to destroy classified documents? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did you find that President Biden directed his personal assistant to move boxes of documents to hide them from the FBI? | ||
| I can't stand these people. | ||
| Okay, he's asking questions about Trump's case and not talking about Biden anymore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is what they do. | |
| Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network. | ||
| Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that. | ||
| There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating Did you find that President Biden showed a classified map related to an ongoing military operation to a campaign aide who did not have clearance? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did you find that President Biden engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Did you find that President Biden engaged in a scheme to conceal? | ||
| map related to an ongoing military operation to a campaign aid who did not have clearance? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did you find that President Biden engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice? | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you find that President Biden engaged in a scheme to conceal? | |
| No. | ||
| Yeah, this is a joke. | ||
| Congress is a joke. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I'll tell you what. | ||
| I'll tell you what, Mr. Liu. | ||
| and his criminal efforts to deceive the FBI. | ||
| Yeah, this is a joke. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Biden handed over to Congress. | |
| This is a joke. | ||
| He laid in complaint fully with investigators. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I'll tell you what. | ||
| I'll tell you what, Mr. Liu. | ||
| Here's what we'll do. | ||
| You criminally charged Donald Trump already. | ||
| You criminally charged Joe Biden. | ||
| Or whatever. | ||
| Don't care. | ||
| I don't know why you're comparing the two. | ||
| Did Joe Biden knowingly, willfully retain classified documents? | ||
| Did he share them with third parties? | ||
| And did he have a motive to do it? | ||
| The answer to those questions is all yes. | ||
| And Robert Herr has testified yes to all of that. | ||
| And the only thing being questioned is whether or not Joe Biden is competent enough to stand trial. | ||
| And because he is not competent, He will not face criminal charges. | ||
| As to whether or not Donald Trump is accused of any wrongdoing, by all means, bring it to court, prove he did it, let the jury say what they want to say, and we'll play that game. | ||
| But it's amazing to me that this is where we're at. | ||
| So much of this hearing has been, but what about Trump? | ||
| But Trump did this. | ||
| I think the most interesting element we have here is that perhaps Robert Herr is trying to insult Joe Biden's intelligence or something. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I just don't see it. | ||
| I want you to pay attention to one very important thing about Robert Herr's testimony right now. | ||
| Ted Lieu says, did Biden instruct his lawyer to lie? | ||
| Did he order to destroy evidence? | ||
| All of these things. | ||
| And to each of these, Robert Herr says, no, no, no. | ||
| Now you take a look at when Republicans are asking Robert Herr about Joe Biden and whether or not he did bad things. | ||
| He goes, the report says yes. | ||
| The report says no. | ||
| He will. | ||
| Distinctly and affirmatively answer of his own person, yes or no. | ||
| When the questions are about something bad or insinuating something bad of Trump. | ||
| Here, I'll scrap some more. | ||
|
unidentified
|
... poor memory. | |
| Wasn't there a request by the White House to do that? | ||
| There was a request, yes. | ||
| And Mr. Chairman, I think the record should show that the gentleman from Maryland earlier | ||
| said that that was not the case. | ||
| I think he said, nor did he seek to redact a single word of Herr's report. | ||
| Obviously Mr. Herr is telling us differently here. | ||
| And didn't the White House then go to the Attorney General himself and say that he would like to see changes to the references in regards to the President's memory? | ||
| The White House Counsel did send such a letter. | ||
| So, if this President was 60 years old rather than 80 years old, would you prosecute him? | ||
| Congressman, as I've said before, I cannot engage in hypotheticals. | ||
| I address the facts and the evidence as I found them. | ||
| There was an 80-year-old grandma that came to Washington, D.C. | ||
| a few years ago, did not commit a violent crime, committed a crime, but not commit a violent crime, and she was fully prosecuted. | ||
| Doesn't that seem like it's a dual system of justice where the president is above the law? | ||
| Wow. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congressman, I don't know the facts and the details of this other case that you're referencing with this other person. | |
| You say that the President is unlikely to re-offend in the future. | ||
| I believe that was a quote that you put in the report. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| I believe that's in Chapter 13. | ||
| How so? | ||
| How is he unlikely to re-offend in the future? | ||
| How do you come to that judgment? | ||
| As I say on page 254, any deterrent effect of prosecution would likely be slight. | ||
| We are not concerned with specific deterrents. | ||
| As we see little risk, he will re-offend. | ||
| Well, isn't it because he's now the president and he has almost unlimited authority to release documents? | ||
| Isn't that correct? | ||
| I mean, as a vice president, he didn't have that authority. | ||
| Now that he's president, isn't it easy to say that, that he's unlikely to reoffend because he's got almost unlimited authority to release these documents? | ||
| Well, that statement was based on that assessment of the likeliness of reoffending from this particular person, President Biden. | ||
| Yeah, but look back at 2011. | ||
| There were multiple instances where he was informed by his staff and they ratcheted it up to where there was a formal process. | ||
| You're saying he's learned from that when he's proven that he hasn't? | ||
| going through a special counsel investigation. | ||
| Yeah, but look back at 2011. | ||
| There were multiple instances where he was informed by his staff | ||
| and they ratcheted it up to where there was a formal process. | ||
| You're saying he's learned from that when he's proven that he hasn't? | ||
| I mean, that goes all the way back to 2011. | ||
| Congressman, what I'm saying in the report at page 254 is that— | ||
| He's a repeat offender, Mr. Herr, isn't he? | ||
| Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha | ||
| What I say- He's a repeat offender! | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll move on to something else here. | |
| You said he had strong motivations to ignore the proper procedures for safeguarding classified information, and he provided raw material to his ghostwriter that would be of interest to prospective readers and buyers of his book, and I think you said something about he viewed himself as a historic figure. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| I believe those words do all appear in the report. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And he was also doing this for business purposes, that there may be people that would want to buy his book. | ||
| Towards the end of his vice presidency, Mr. Biden had resolved to write a book and began work on it towards the end of his vice presidency. | ||
| You know, I think, Mr. Chairman, this is really consistent with the Biden family when you look at them in trying to enrich themselves. | ||
| I mean, you're familiar with the work that the Oversight Committee has done over the last year, right? | ||
| I have read some reports of it. | ||
| I mean, 20 phone calls that were made to his son that he denied in 2019, 20 shell companies that were created, over $20 million. | ||
| I mean, doesn't it appear there's a pattern here that, where I come from, they almost call it money-grubbing. | ||
| Congressman, what I'm here to testify about today is the work that I conducted in this investigation and in this report. | ||
| So I want to thank you for the work that you did as far as you could. | ||
| But unfortunately, you are part of the Praetorian Guard that guards the swamp out here in Washington, D.C., protecting the elites. | ||
| And Joe Biden is part of that company of the elites. | ||
| And you see it in the things that the Department of Justice has not acted on, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I mean, you look at the President's son, who does not have to answer for lying on his form 4473 in regards to throwing away a weapon. | ||
| I want to stress this. | ||
| Here we go with the Republicans now talking about Hunter Biden. | ||
| And I can say it for both Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| Let's talk about Joe Biden. | ||
| This is the hearing about Joe Biden. | ||
| Republicans want to come up here and say, you know, Hunter Biden's doing these things. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| They want to come and say Trump's doing these things. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| But listen to what was just testified to. | ||
| Joe Biden views himself as a historical figure. | ||
| Joe Biden knew that people would want to buy his book, and he was resolved to make this book. | ||
| We know for a fact, based on Robert Hurst's testimony, it is factually stated in the report, Biden retained classified documents for the purpose Of preserving his legacy, which include financial gain. | ||
| He wanted to sell a book. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So what do you call it? | ||
| When someone in government takes classified information they do not have access, they don't have the authority to take, because they want to make money. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| And then shares it with someone who's not, uh, is not allowed access to that. | ||
| I gotta be honest, I don't think it's espionage. | ||
| But there's something in there, something real criminal. | ||
| And I don't see how right now the state of mind of Joe Biden plays a role in what he did seven years ago. | ||
| That's the wild thing. | ||
| So he does these things as he's leaving the White House in 2016, 2017. | ||
| But because he's a bumbling, broken daughter today, you can't criminally charge him? | ||
| Well, because we put him on the stand, the jury is going to say he's just a bumbling old fool. | ||
| You could say the same thing of Donald Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No findings of obstructive conduct on the part of... Let me ask you another question. | |
| President Trump has been indicted in the U.S. | ||
| District Court in Southern Florida. | ||
| On 40 counts related to his possession of classified documents. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| I don't know the exact number of counts, but I know that an indictment is pending in that district. | ||
| Mr. Herr, you even wrote that after being given a number of chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr., I should say President Trump, allegedly did oppose. | ||
| And according to the indictment, he not only refused to return those documents over for many months, Okay, so these are all accusations, right? | ||
| Against Donald Trump, he's being charged. | ||
| The first thing I'll say is the president has what is described as plenary declassification powers. | ||
| He is the president. | ||
| He determines what is or is not classified. | ||
| Some people want to argue this. | ||
| By all means, take it up to the Supreme Court and we'll see what they have to say. | ||
| My view is that, uh, how could the president not have just the ability to take whatever he wants? | ||
| It makes no sense. | ||
| Joe Biden was the vice president. | ||
| He does not have the authority to classify documents. | ||
| He is not the chief, the commander-in-chief or the executive of this country. | ||
| That is the big difference. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would say President Biden, you had his full cooperation in this investigation. | |
| The report includes cooperative steps that the president took. | ||
| Matt Gaetz referred to this as the senile cooperation theory. | ||
| That Joe Biden cooperated but he's just too senile to prosecute. | ||
| I don't know who made this point. | ||
| I don't think it was Gates. | ||
| I think maybe this made it recently. | ||
| If an old man who's well-meaning gets into his car and runs a child over, we hold that person criminally responsible. | ||
| And you can say he was an old man who had a bad memory and couldn't see very well. | ||
| There was no intent to kill. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| However, there was intent to drive, there was impairment, and so we have a class of crimes for that. | ||
| That could be negligent homicide, it could be manslaughter. | ||
| In the instance of this case, I don't understand. | ||
| Comment, those that are watching live, what do you think this is about? | ||
| They've said it now, what, three times? | ||
| The report states Joe Biden wanted to sell a book, wanted to preserve his legacy, took the documents, held them in numerous locations. | ||
| Some were a mistake, some were not. | ||
| He shared the information with an individual who does not have clearance, and he told him, be careful, some of this may be classified. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we just say... nothing? | |
| Two-tiered justice system, I guess. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much for being here. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I yield. | ||
| Gentleman yields back. | ||
| Gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Attorney Herr, Webster's dictionary defines senile as exhibiting a decline of cognitive ability, such as memory associated with old age. | |
| Mr. Herr, based on your report, did you find that the President was senile? | ||
| I did not. | ||
| That conclusion does not appear in my report, Congressman. | ||
| You see how he answers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You felt, though, that the President's memory or lack thereof was a critical reason to decline prosecution. | |
| The reason I'm asking this is whether you believe the President would be fit to stand trial, or do you think his lawyers would argue his incompetence to stand trial due to his state of mind? | ||
| Also, you know, was he in a place to actually be questioned? | ||
| Congressman, my report, to the extent that it addresses The president's memory gaps that we identified in the evidence that we obtained during our investigation. | ||
| They are addressed in the context of determining how the jury would perceive, receive and consider evidence relating to whether or not the president had willful intent when it came to retaining or disclosing national defense information. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| I'd like to focus my questioning on Chapter 14 of your report. | ||
| The classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center You state in your report that the documents found at the Penn-Biden Center were the most highly classified, sensitive, and compartmentalized materials recovered during your investigation. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| That is correct. | ||
| Many of the documents came from Mr. Biden's West Wing office. | ||
| That's also correct, isn't it? | ||
| I believe that is reflected in the report. | ||
| Did you ask if he had packed the boxes himself? | ||
| I believe that was one of the questions that we asked and that is reflected in the transcript now available to the committee. | ||
| I think it's important. | ||
| How would you characterize the packing of these boxes? | ||
| Was it slow and meticulous or were they packed in haste without much scrutiny at all? | ||
| I don't recall off the top of my head exactly how we characterize it, but I think the gist of the evidence is that the manner in which files were Pecked up and moved out at the end of the Obama administration was in a, it was in something of a rushed manner. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| According to your report, the boxes were moved between multiple offices between Mr. Biden departing his West Wing office in January of 17 and his arrival at the Penn Biden Center's permanent offices in October of 17. | ||
| Were any of these offices authorized to store classified information? | ||
| No. | ||
| When the boxes finally arrived at the Penn-Biden Center's permanent offices, how were they stored? | ||
| I believe when the materials were recovered, some of them were stored in a storage closet, and I believe others of them were in file cabinet drawers. | ||
| So, I want to address this, because this is a little bit of a dry question, but he does bring up the Penn-Biden Center, and here's what's fascinating. | ||
| According to the House Oversight Committee, anonymous Chinese donations to UPenn potentially influenced Biden's administration policies. | ||
| So, there's concerns that this could be related to foreign adversaries influencing Biden's operations, or at the very least, they could have gained access to this information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who discovered these boxes? | |
| It was Patrick Moore. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| One of the President's personal counsel. | ||
| And did Mr. Moore have some type of active security clearance at the time? | ||
| No. | ||
| How about the executive assistant at the Penn-Biden Center? | ||
| No. | ||
| On page 265 of your report— Actually, I'm sorry, Congressman. | ||
| I may have misspoken there. | ||
| I am not certain whether or not that executive assistant had an active security clearance at the time. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| On page 265 of your report, you stated, When interviewed by FBI agents, Moore believed the small closet was initially locked and that the Penn-Biden Center staff member provided a key to unlock it, but his memory was fuzzy on that point. | ||
| But an interview with Mr. Biden's executive assistant seemed to contradict his statement. | ||
| Do you remember this exchange, and did, in fact, it contradict each other? | ||
| Sir, you're asking if I remember the exchange with Mr. Moore during our interview with him? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Do you remember them contradicting each other? | ||
| I don't remember that contradiction specifically, but generally during the interview, sometimes we heard things from some witnesses that were in tension with what we heard from other witnesses, and we did our best to resolve those conflicts. | ||
| Just very quickly, in total, the National Archives discovered nine documents totaling 44 pages with classification markings. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| From the Penn-Biden Center, yes. | ||
| And you declined charges because, in summarizing your analysis, you couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that retention of the documents was willful. | ||
| Correct, sir. | ||
| So this is actually interesting. | ||
| Jonathan Turley, mentioning the previous testimony, her just contradicted the claims of Democratic members that Biden and the White House did not try to change his report or remove material. | ||
| He confirmed the White House made multiple such objections to Attorney General Garland and did sends to letters seeking changes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And in the very first sentence of your report, which was, we conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. | |
| Did I read that accurately? | ||
| You did, Congresswoman. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Your report also says, in addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for the documents that we have not been able to refute. | ||
| Did I read that correctly? | ||
| Congresswoman, if you would give me a page citation. | ||
| Page six. | ||
| Six. | ||
| Yes, I see that language on page six. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| Now, in addition to those conclusions, your report details several material distinctions, as you called them, between President Biden's actions and former President Trump's mishandling of classified materials. | ||
| The facts are that President Biden cooperated with your investigation. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Meaningless, he didn't. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Meaningless. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| notified authorities when they discovered classified documents and he turned them over immediately. | ||
| Is that correct? Yes. Meaningless. He consented to multiple searches of his home and other | ||
| properties. Is that correct? Correct. Meaningless. And he voluntarily sat for an interview with you. | ||
| Is that correct? If someone is accused of a crime and they decide to cooperate with police, | ||
| we typically refer to that person as having a very bad lawyer. | ||
| So in this regard, the fact that Joe Biden committed the crime willfully, we know he did it. | ||
| We know why he did it. | ||
| We know what he sought to gain from it. | ||
| It doesn't matter if afterwards he goes, you caught me. | ||
| Tell me what you want to know. | ||
| That's the argument they're making. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, you noted in your testimony that the specific comments you made about President Biden's memory have gotten a lot of attention. | |
| And as we've seen today, Our Republican colleagues are again and again trying to | ||
| weaponize those comments in a cheap attempt to score political points, but as someone who's | ||
| participated in trials, you know that witnesses, regardless of age, often have | ||
| difficulty recalling specific statements or facts when asked about them many years after. | ||
| Oh, here we go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
After those facts. | |
| So let's take a quick look at a differing witness experiencing a lapse in memory during | ||
| a deposition. | ||
| Your next wife was a woman by the name of Marla Maples. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And sitting here today, do you recall what years you were married to Ms. Maples? | ||
| Ms. Maples? | ||
| I'd have to get the exact dates for you. | ||
| I can do that. | ||
| Am I correct that you married your current wife in January 2005? | ||
| I don't know relative to that date. | ||
| And what years were you the owner of the Paz Hotel? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know the years. | |
| James Webb. | ||
| I don't remember the names. | ||
| I don't remember the name. | ||
| So you don't remember sitting with one of the best men in the world? | ||
| I don't remember that. Trump, Trump is too senile to stand trial. | ||
| She proves it. | ||
| Thank you, Ms. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Scanlon. | |
| Ms. Scanlon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
...don't remember 35 times in his deposition for a lawsuit over Trump University. | |
| And in response to questions from... | ||
| She's defending Trump. ...Special Counsel Robert Mueller, he answered, did not remember or could not recall 27 times. | ||
| Now, Mr. Herr, you've said today that DOJ process and regulations required you to assess | ||
| whether a jury would find Mr. Biden to be a credible witness, correct? | ||
| I'm not sure that I said those words exactly, but of course... | ||
| In my view, how a jury would perceive Mr. Biden if he elected to testify in his own defense at a trial, that would be part of the whole ball of wax that jurors would consider. | ||
| Yeah, the whole ball of wax! | ||
| So let's break it down for you. | ||
| If you put Joe Biden on trial in Washington, D.C., they would acquit him no matter what. | ||
| And if you put Donald Trump on trial in a federal court, well, okay, maybe you'll win something in Florida, but Democrats are going to vote to convict no matter what. | ||
|
unidentified
|
An assessment of whether the jury would find Mr. Trump to be a credible witness? | |
| I don't have any information relating to what, how, I'm not qualified basically to answer that question as to what went into Mr. Smith's decision making. | ||
| But you are qualified to say what are the normal procedures followed by a special counsel, correct? | ||
| I'm familiar with the rules and set forth in the Justice Manual and my understanding of how to apply them. | ||
| And in fact what you did? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| So I would suggest that we can all assume that the fact that Mr. Trump was charged with multiple counts of willfully concealing classified documents suggests that the special counsel in that case determined that Mr. Trump's denials are not credible. | ||
| At this point, I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an excerpt from the committee's transcribed interview with Stephen Mr. D'Antonio, former Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office on July 7, 2023, in which he explained the urgency for the FBI to retrieve and secure classified documents from Donald Trump's estate because they contained national security information that should not be viewed by anyone without the proper security clearance. | ||
| Even Mr. D'Antonio himself could not view the documents given their high security clearance, despite being the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office. | ||
| Thank you, I yield back. | ||
| Out of objection, the gentleman from Oregon is recognized for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| I'm quite interested in the dates that are set forth in your report, Mr. Herr. | ||
| And the reason I'm interested is because I keep getting confused between the 2017 date and the 2024 date. | ||
| Good question. | ||
| As to the condition of the president's memory. | ||
| Yes, here we go! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Was there a difference? | |
| Because when I look at it, it seems like his memory was bad in 2000. | ||
| 17, and then it was bad today. | ||
| There's never any distinction made, but isn't it true that if you were going to be looking at his, at prosecuting as you were, you would look carefully at his condition in 2017? | ||
| Yes, the time of the crime, what was his mental state? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think you say in your report that the most, your best case, I think you call it out, The best case for charges would rely on Mr. Biden's possession of Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home in February 2017 when he was a private citizen and when he told his ghostwriter he just found classified material. | |
| That's the best case as you say it. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And then you work your way through a series of defenses against your best case. | ||
| So you were looking at his condition in 2017. | ||
| Do I have that right? | ||
| You do, Congressman. | ||
| And his memory was bad then. | ||
| We can draw our conclusions whether it improved over the next six years or not. | ||
| But I just want to make sure it's clear that we're looking at his condition in 2017, which | ||
| you then find as you go through the list of defenses, that is his memory is bad, his memory | ||
| is bad, his memory is bad. | ||
| There's about six or seven defenses here. | ||
| And so what it gets me to is this question. | ||
| And I actually pulled this quote out of something I read this morning, that perhaps your report | ||
| concluded and perhaps it did not, that the president is, quote, incapable of being held | ||
| accountable. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| But that's not quite what happened, is it? | ||
| You didn't find that he was incapable of being held accountable, did you? | ||
| I did not. | ||
| Those words do not appear in my report. | ||
| They do not. | ||
| But you reached a conclusion that you didn't have the evidence, but then your report continually | ||
| recites these defenses. | ||
| I'm having a hard time putting the two together. | ||
| If you didn't have the evidence... | ||
| Why do you persist in reciting these defenses? | ||
| Congressman, I wrote my report as an explanation of my decision to decline charges as to President Biden. | ||
| And the way that I came up with that explanation and wrote it in my report for the Attorney General is the following. | ||
| The approach that I took was a prosecutor envisioning what would be the probable outcome of trial if we charge this case, if we presented the evidence to a jury, and not only the government presenting the evidence to a jury, but what would happen if the defense lawyers also got a chance to try to poke holes in the government's case at trial. | ||
| And with respect to one of the several potential defenses that I lay out in the report, One of them does focus on the President's memory-related issues. | ||
| That is a defense that the President's defense lawyers may well present at trial. | ||
| And a jury is going to be confronted with at least three separate sets of evidence relating to the President's memory. | ||
| One is from the recordings in 2016 and 2017 from the Ghost Rider. | ||
| Forgive me for interrupting, but I'm limited on time as everybody else was. | ||
| But you say, I think, that the evidence Suggests he is incapable of forming, or you're incapable of proving, intent. | ||
| There's kind of a bit of a difference there, right? | ||
| You may well have had the intent, but you could not, of holding these documents, and I hate to say hiding the documents, but you couldn't prove it. | ||
| So what you did instead is fell back to the various defenses that might also be asserted against you. | ||
| Kind of a heap of rationale for not pursuing the president. | ||
| Do I have it right now? | ||
| Congressman, I think we're on the same page. | ||
| I think what I'm trying to convey is that the way that prosecutors assess the strengths and weaknesses of their case is to think through, hey, in the government's case in chief, here's the evidence we're going to present, and the jury might be with us. | ||
| But that's not the end of the trial. | ||
| The question here that was brought up right away, Joe Biden in 2017 was of sound mind, | ||
|
unidentified
|
yes or no? | |
| So it's not an exoneration, is it? | ||
| The word exoneration does not appear anywhere in my report, and that is not my conclusion. | ||
| The other thing that's of interest, and I think you were misquoted, you said something about, or someone, I think it was Mr. Raskin, suggested that you, well, I'm going to run out of time, but I appreciate the work you do as a prosecutor and a yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields back. | ||
| Mr. Herb, we've been at this close to three hours. | ||
| If you can hang with us, we'd like to keep going. | ||
| There's a chance we could complete votes by the time we have to go to votes on the House floor, which would be about 140. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can keep going, Chairman. | |
| Okay, then we'll try to do that. | ||
| There's a chance we may not, too, but I just wanted you to know the lay of the land. | ||
| Now I yield to the gentleman from Colorado. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Herb, for your testimony and for your service as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice. | ||
| I want to focus a bit more on the progress of the investigation and some process questions. | ||
| So, you were appointed by Attorney General Garland as Special Counsel to investigate the President's handling of classified documents in January of 2023. | ||
| Correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| And Attorney General Garland, of course, as you know, was nominated by President Biden to serve in his role. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| No. | ||
| They're playing a game. | ||
| month investigation did the attorney general attempt to interfere with your investigation? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did he impede your investigation in any way? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did any other member of the Department of Justice or within the administration refuse | ||
| to cooperate with your investigation? | ||
| No. | ||
| Were you ever denied access to materials, witnesses, resources from Attorney General | ||
| Garland that you might have needed during the investigation? | ||
| They're playing a game. | ||
| No. | ||
| They're playing a game right now where they're trying to compare and contrast this to Trump, | ||
| but I'll say it again because it's been said a million times. | ||
| I guess this is the takeaway as we're sitting through this. | ||
| There's no reason for us to listen to a Democrat keep playing this game of, did Joe Biden do what Donald Trump did? | ||
| Because this is not the criteria for criminal charges. | ||
| The criteria for criminal charges have been met. | ||
| Joe Biden did retain the documents. | ||
| Joe Biden transmitted the documents, which I believe is a separate crime. | ||
| Joe Biden had intent and motive to do so. | ||
| The question is, is he of sound mind? | ||
| And the conclusion was that he couldn't prove intent because Joe Biden's memory was bad. | ||
| And his conclusion is that in 2017, it was as bad as it is today. | ||
| That's up for a jury to decide. | ||
| Joe Biden today versus Joe Biden seven years ago, I think it's a ridiculous proposal. | ||
| And I think a probable cause has been met, and now it should go to a jury to decide. | ||
| I believe that Robert Herr is lying when he says that they could not make a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. | ||
| Because in this hearing already, I think it's been heard. | ||
| The issue at hand is this. | ||
| Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden should be charged for this. | ||
| You can make an argument about a slap on the wrist, but here's the problem. | ||
| They need something to go after Donald Trump. | ||
| That's why Democrats keep saying over and over again, did Joe Biden do what Trump did? | ||
| The things they're claiming that Trump did are accusations that have not been proven. | ||
| This is the game they're playing. | ||
| They wanted to go after Trump. | ||
| They stretched the law as far as they could to try and get Trump on something because they want to disqualify him. | ||
| And because of this, they accidentally swept up Joe Biden. | ||
| Now they're coming up with reasons as to why Joe Biden is exempt from this as a doddering old fool. | ||
| And Trump should be found guilty. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| It's a two-tier system of justice any way you look at it. | ||
| And I'll tell you what I think about, you know, I'm not going to go through all of the testimony here actually. | ||
| I'll give you some final thoughts as we start to wind things down on this extended stream. | ||
| Breaking news. | ||
| It's a bit of a wild day. | ||
| Didn't have a 10 a.m. | ||
| segment. | ||
| But I think Robert Herr is appointed because he is a warm milk Republican. | ||
| Because he is a plain yogurt Republican. | ||
| You see, Republicans are centrist, as I've stated many times in the past week or so. | ||
| Here's Robert Herr, a registered Republican, who's going to go, well, you know the right thing to do for this country. | ||
| And so what the Democrats say is, look, we had a Republican investigate Joe Biden, and even he concluded that Joe Biden didn't do anything wrong. | ||
| He said insufficient evidence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| They could have gotten, I mean, imagine if, I don't know, insert anyone, let's say they got the guys over at Judicial Watch to handle this. | ||
| Let's say they got any one of these lawyers that we referenced, Jonathan Turley, to do the investigation. | ||
| Yeah, Joe Biden would be in criminal, would be facing criminal charges. | ||
| That's the reality. | ||
| You know, I can't say I know for sure, though. | ||
| I should walk that back a little bit. | ||
| The issue with Republicans is that they're centrists, is that we can all sit here and we can say that we know Joe Biden did commit this crime, and I think there should be accountability regardless of what form it takes. | ||
| Maybe you want to argue there's a doddering old fool who can't remember, and okay, if that's the case, then what we do is we say some kind of criminal negligence and not willful retention, whatever you want to call it, but criminal charges nonetheless. | ||
| Instead, we are, in this country, you have a left and you have a center, and that's it. | ||
| Now don't get me wrong, there is an element of the far right and the fringe right, they exist, but they're microscopic and they hold no institutional power. | ||
| You take a look at what Democrats are willing to do. | ||
| Donald Trump should be brought up on charges in every possible jurisdiction. | ||
| Donald Trump should be falsely accused of impropriety and sexual assault. | ||
| Then, when the court actually ruled in New York that Trump was not liable for rape, the media will say it anyway. | ||
| And they do, over and over again, ad nauseam. | ||
| And Republicans go, well, hold on, you know, let's go for the middle ground here. | ||
| Let's be reasonable. | ||
| Okay, here's what needs to happen. | ||
| The only way this changes is if Republicans actually go on the offensive. | ||
| I don't think they will. | ||
| The Deep State, the Uniparty, the establishment, whatever, they tolerate the milquetoast Republicans who argue for the middle ground. | ||
| You know, some people would ask, you know, how come you're not getting banned, Tim? | ||
| Well, we do get shadow banned on YouTube, for sure. | ||
| YouTube's not nearly the worst. | ||
| TikTok is. | ||
| But we'll see. | ||
| Because we're now entering this territory that I've talked about quite a bit. | ||
| The right needs to actually start asserting a right-wing position and not a centrist position. | ||
| That's the reality. | ||
| Uh, the example I give is, uh, paid speech. | ||
| How about this? | ||
| How about the right actually start arguing for blasphemy laws on X? | ||
| Elon Musk should ban anyone who blasphemes the name of Abrahamic God. | ||
| So that would protect Muslims, Jews, and Christians. | ||
| And all denominations. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Because conservatives keep arguing for free speech while Democrats keep arguing for blasphemy laws. | ||
| Which means the end result is going to be a moderation between slight blasphemy laws and free speech. | ||
| Or neutrality. | ||
| I should say free speech. | ||
| Neutrality. | ||
| The right-wing position on misgendering. | ||
| X should ban anyone who uses a pronoun that does not align with a person's biological sex. | ||
| That's the right-wing position. | ||
| They don't argue for it. | ||
| They argue for the middle of the road. | ||
| They say, no, no, no, no, just don't ban anybody. | ||
| Then the left says, okay, we'll ban anybody who misgenders us. | ||
| What do you get? | ||
| Middle-of-the-road approach. | ||
| Elon Musk entertains a misgendering policy. | ||
| He allows it on his platform. | ||
| But he says, don't worry, it'll only apply to Brazil. | ||
| How about we demand a right-wing response? | ||
| And maybe then we'll get the middle of the road. | ||
| See, what I truly think should happen is, you should be allowed to speak. | ||
| Shane Cashman, we had him on IRL last night, made a really great point. | ||
| He said, if all of this murder and violence and adult content can appear on X, why can't we say our political opinions? | ||
| You're allowed to look at a video of hardcore adult content on X, but you can't say something like, I personally find this political idea bad? | ||
| They'll ban you for it? | ||
| This is the problem. | ||
| Right now, X has a misgendering policy. | ||
| Elon Musk said he opposes it, but there it is. | ||
| Plain as day. | ||
| Just sitting there. | ||
| Where is the gendering policy? | ||
| Where is the, you will be banned if you use preferred pronouns? | ||
| Why not? | ||
| No one's arguing for it. | ||
| No one's threatening to pull ads. | ||
| No one's canceling their memberships. | ||
| The left will do everything in their power to force the issue and the right will keep saying, let's stay in the middle of the road because Republicans in this country are centrists. | ||
| And I can't explain it better than that. | ||
| The left will argue they're not. | ||
| They'll say, no, you're far right, we're centrists. | ||
| But they're far left. | ||
| In terms of what the right actually believes, they don't argue for their own beliefs. | ||
| In terms of what the left believes, they argue for all of it. | ||
| And so here we are. | ||
| I suppose we can get a little bit more of the hearing in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
... to a jury in a criminal trial if charges were brought. | |
| I guess I'm asking specifically, I know you cite in the report the dates that he couldn't | ||
| remember when he was vice president, when he began, when his term ended. | ||
| You cite that in the report. | ||
| Is there anything else specifically that stands out from that interview with the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A number of things stand out. | |
| And again, I'm aware that the transcript has now been made available. | ||
| I do provide certain examples in my report of significant, personally painful experiences about which the President was unable to recall certain information. | ||
| I also took into account the President's overall demeanor in interacting with me during the five-plus hour voluntary interview. | ||
| A wealth of details about being there in the moment with the President, including his inability to recall certain things. | ||
| And I'll also say, as reflected in the transcript, the fact that he was prompted on numerous occasions by the members of the White House Counsel's Office. | ||
| I read that. | ||
| The brief look I had at the transcript this morning, because we just got it this morning, I saw some of that. | ||
| Do you now recognize the gentlelady from Texas? | ||
| Or excuse me, Pennsylvania. | ||
| I'm used to you being down there. | ||
| The gentlelady from Pennsylvania. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I got an upgrade. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Herr. | |
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Herr, for your service to our country, for your team's service in this investigation. | ||
| You determined, after what you described as rigorous, detailed, and thorough analysis, that President Biden should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified documents. | ||
| In fact, everybody can take a look at your report. | ||
| The very first sentence says as much. | ||
| It says, quote, We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. | ||
| Am I correct? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| That's the bottom line of this report. | ||
| Am I correct? | ||
| That is the first sentence. | ||
| It's the first sentence and the bottom line. | ||
| There's an awful lot of misinformation that has been put forward by the press in some cases and also by the other side of this dais. | ||
| You didn't reach this decision because President Biden was sympathetic. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| I reached the decision based on the totality of the reasons that I set forth at length in my report. | ||
| Based on the evidence. | ||
| And while Mr. Trump, who is being prosecuted, is not sympathetic, you didn't calibrate any of that in there. | ||
| Sympathetic, not sympathetic. | ||
| Doesn't matter. | ||
| It's the evidence, right? | ||
| Congresswoman, I did not reach any assessments of the evidence in the Trump matter to the extent that I considered the allegations against former President Trump. | ||
| It was for purposes of comparing relevant precedents. | ||
| I trust that with your credibility, you were not out to get Mr. Trump nor here to help Mr. Biden. | ||
| I think it's about the evidence. | ||
| And I think you say that over and over again in your report. | ||
| Why did you decide President Biden should not be prosecuted? | ||
| Your report tells us, quote, We conclude the evidence is not sufficient to convict. | ||
| Those are your words. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| I believe if those exact words do not appear in the report, that is consistent with the gist of my conclusion. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| They are your exact words. | ||
| That was not the case with Donald Trump. | ||
| You have a copy of your report today, don't you, in front of you? | ||
| I do. | ||
| Could you read a portion of it for me? | ||
| Your words. | ||
| It is page 11, starting on line 3, beginning with the words. | ||
| Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, would you read the next few sentences? | ||
| Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious, aggravating facts. | ||
| Keep going. | ||
| Congresswoman, I'm happy to have you read the words in my report. | ||
| Well, it's your report, so I think it actually is more fitting that you read those. | ||
| Oh, what a grand waste of time. | ||
| Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. | ||
| Keep going. | ||
| According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. | ||
| You may stop there. | ||
| Now, my question is, did Robert, was Robert Hurd an investigator in the Trump case? | ||
| Honest question. | ||
| I'm not familiar. | ||
| Or see the special counsel investigating Joe Biden's crimes. | ||
| It's it's it's theater. | ||
| It's all fake and we all know it. | ||
| I feel like the internet was an accident. | ||
| It was not supposed to give you a view. | ||
| It was not supposed to give me a platform. | ||
| I mean, I can think about it a million ways. | ||
| You take a look at some of the people who have risen to prominence in political commentary in sports or otherwise, and they don't fit that traditional mold of how the machine operated. | ||
| They certainly don't. | ||
| Now here we are, playing this game once again. | ||
| But I feel like something is going to burst. | ||
| I don't see this being sustainable for us or for anyone else in that we're watching in real time. | ||
| We know the games and the lies. | ||
| Imagine what it must have been like a hundred years ago. | ||
| As radio. | ||
| But for the most part, they'd go to Congress and no one would have any idea what happened. | ||
| And then, uh, after the session, some reporter would run out and write down in a newspaper what they thought happened. | ||
| And, uh, sure enough, you'd have Democrats and Republicans, they'd be like, ah, that's not what happened. | ||
| That's what the American people thought what happened. | ||
| Radio, of course, changed things. | ||
| Television changed things, but now we have the Internet. | ||
| Where, and in real time, we're watching all of this theater. | ||
| Lies. | ||
| Manipulations. | ||
| I don't know what the point is in talking about Joe Biden and these classified documents. | ||
| Matt Gaetz, I think, was right. | ||
| Neither Trump nor Biden should be charged with this. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| These are slap on the wrists. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| What are you doing with these documents? | ||
| Get out of here. | ||
| You take them back, whatever. | ||
| Eh, whatever. | ||
| No big deal. | ||
| Who cares? | ||
| Civil penalties? | ||
| A lawsuit? | ||
| A slap on the wrist? | ||
| Yet here we are. | ||
| And you get people like Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert and they scream Donald Trump is the apocalypse while the country is rotting from the inside out. | ||
| I don't know why this matters. | ||
| It's politicking, I guess. | ||
| Republicans are going to bank on this. | ||
| This is great for Republicans. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because they got you and I riled up over a two-tiered justice system, and they want us to spread that message. | ||
| That's why they don't want to actually charge Joe Biden. | ||
| That's why they don't want to actually impeach him. | ||
| They want us to get angry and demand accountability so that we're riled up, furious, and we all go vote. | ||
| Well, good job, I guess. | ||
| That is exactly what people should be doing right now. | ||
| I'm gonna wind things down from here. | ||
| This is a special live show for a variety of reasons. | ||
| For those that have been following me on Twitter, and for those who are wondering why there was no 10AM segment, Last night, after Timcast IRL, we got word that Mr. Bocas, he is our cat, was probably on the way out. | ||
| And so we, you know, I went downstairs after the show and hung out with him for a little bit. | ||
| And it was clear that he could barely stand, he could barely move. | ||
| And this morning, when I came in at my normal time, Mr. Bocas was unable to move completely. | ||
| And he's, of course, our cat. | ||
| We have a coffee at Casper.com. | ||
| The Pumpkin Spice Mr. Bokas Blend will be discontinued after the final run. | ||
| So whatever's left will be the last of it. | ||
| And if you want to have that bag, the only chance is to get it now. | ||
| And it was made in a simpler time. | ||
| We were planning all of this when Mr. Bocas was fat and happy. | ||
| But in December of last year, we got word that his kidneys were failing. | ||
| We extended his life as long as we could. | ||
| This morning, at about 8... 8.20 or so, we went outside and we laid Mr. Bocas in the grass by the chickens so they could watch the birds and the chickens one last time. | ||
| He immediately started sniffing, though he couldn't move, and twitching his feet. | ||
| He was trying. | ||
| And, uh, hopefully that was the way to do it. | ||
| I had a million and one people. | ||
| Saying just bring him into the vet and give him the injection and I said no We will bring him outside. | ||
| He stopped eating. | ||
| He couldn't eat and it was quick. | ||
| It was it was a day One day he was eating two weeks ago. | ||
| He was here in the show and he was jumping up and down and then Seemingly overnight his kidneys shut off and he wouldn't eat food. | ||
| He wouldn't take anything he was struggling to drink water and he was just mumbling and So we brought him outside and I felt that it was not appropriate to bring him to the vet just to give him an injection. | ||
| The last experience of his life would be a cold, sterile environment where he is confused and scared. | ||
| But I thought the best thing to do would be to lay him in the grass in front of Chicken City so he can watch the chickens he so longed for in his younger days. | ||
| And that's how he would go. | ||
| We brought him outside and it took about an hour. | ||
| And at 9.48 a.m. | ||
| he gave his last breath and his heart stopped beating and that was it. | ||
| It was pretty brutal and so I decided, you know, as I was sitting outside, I care substantially less about missing one morning news segment and would rather ...be out there with Mr. Bocas. | ||
| I believe he may have been just shy of six years old. | ||
| He had underdeveloped kidneys, so his adult cat body could not handle the, uh... The kidneys were basically working at, like, 130%. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like, I probably, that's probably inaccurate, but like, if typically your kidneys are functioning at like a certain degree of their threshold, imagine, you know, Mr. Bocas was carrying the heaviest weights imaginable every day, it's gonna wear down, you're gonna break, and that's what happened. | ||
| Unfortunately, because he also had an enlarged heart with a valve issue, there was very little we could do. | ||
| They were saying weekly blood transfusions would keep him alive, but then his heart's gonna give out. | ||
| And so it is what it is. | ||
| About 1 hour and 20 minutes laying in the grass, and then he stopped breathing. | ||
| You know what I figured was... | ||
| You know, everyone said bring him to the vet. | ||
| I'm like, we're gonna drive 40 minutes to the vet, we're gonna bring him in, he's gonna be crying and groaning, confused and scared, and they're gonna inject him and he's gonna be miserable. | ||
| But I figured if we laid him in the grass, in the sunshine, the reality is that he would suffer a lot less as the, you know, it's cool ground. | ||
| He wouldn't last very long, and I was correct, so. | ||
| Missed that morning segment, and I think I'm gonna call it here because we're going to go have the burial for Mr. Bocas. | ||
| He is but a cat, but he is still family, and he's family for all the TimCast members. | ||
| And a shout-out to all the people who, these grumbling, just, you know, just, these people who are on Twitter, like, grow up, it's a cat, your cat died. | ||
| And I'm like, you know, I feel like those are the people that want to live in the machine world. | ||
| That they want to be part of the machine, they want to be the Terminator. | ||
| What makes us human and what makes the human experience is the feelings that we have along the way. | ||
| And I don't know what would be more important or what I would do any of all, you know, what is the point of all of this work but to be loyal to those who are loyal to me and to, you know, honor those who have honored us. | ||
| So the words of some stranger on the internet complaining that I'm caring more for a cat or something like that is absolutely meaningless to me, for if I don't honor those who have been here for me, in my life be it the lowliest of creatures, just a humble cat, who pissed all over my floor incessantly, then I don't know what I'm doing any of this for. | ||
| Because I might as well just go out and live in a van down by the river. | ||
| But no, we, uh... That's what we're gonna do. | ||
| We will be back tonight for Timcast IRL, but I think I'm gonna wrap it up there and we're gonna go, um... We're thinking Viking Funeral at Freedomistan. | ||
| Make a little boat with a little pyre on it and anchor it in the center of a pond. | ||
| We have a pond there, it's very safe. | ||
| And then just maybe a Viking funeral of some sort. | ||
| I don't know if we're allowed to do that. | ||
| Otherwise, we'll just bury him and give him a little tombstone, which may be the appropriate thing. | ||
| But, uh, that was it. | ||
| We didn't know it was gonna happen. | ||
| But, uh... You know, I think... I think that, uh, in the end, Mr. Bocas was about to go, and he waited for me to get here in the morning, and so I gave him that. | ||
| I'm gonna wrap it up. | ||
| I will see you all tonight at 8 p.m. | ||
| over on TimCastIRL. |