Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio leaves a House Republican meeting at the Longworth House Office Building at the Capitol on October 24, 2023 in Washington, DC.
CNN
—
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has accused President Joe Biden of ghosts after special counsel Robert Hur reported that he shared classified information with Biden in 2017, according to a letter first obtained by CNN. A letter was sent to the writer requesting information and an interview.
Jordan provided Mark Zwonitzer with audio recordings of interviews and conversations with Biden for Biden’s memoirs Promise Me Dad and Keeping My Promises, as well as related ghostwriting work that he shared. He demanded that all documents, correspondence and contracts be handed over. with special advisors.
Jordan said he wants the materials by February 23. He also asked Mr. Zwonitzer to be present for the transcription of the interview.
“In light of Special Counsel Hoar’s investigation and report, the committee is requesting materials and information currently in your possession,” Jordan wrote.
In 2017, after leaving office as vice president, Biden worked with a ghostwriter to write his memoir, telling Biden in a recorded conversation, “I just found all the classified information downstairs,” according to Xu’s report. he said. The house he rented in Virginia.
Investigators believed the evidence suggested Biden was referring to a classified document regarding the 2009 troop increase in Afghanistan, which FBI agents later found in his garage in Delaware. discovered.
Heo’s report came after Biden left the vice presidency but before he took office as president in 2021, so the “best case for suspicion” is that Biden was in possession of classified documents in 2017. He said it depends on the situation. However, Heo ultimately did not present any charges.
At a press conference after the report was released, the president said of the suspicion that he had shared classified information with ghostwriters, saying, “I have not shared classified information, I have not shared it.”
The report states that “several defenses are likely to raise reasonable doubt regarding such charges.”
“For example, Mr. Biden may have found classified Afghan documents in his Virginia home in 2017 and then quickly forgotten about them. This could lead some rational jurors to believe that he was intentionally “They may be convinced that they were not detained in any way,” the report said.
The report also notes the fact that Biden never spoke about the document again during “dozens of hours” of recorded conversations with the ghostwriter, and that the document was left in Biden’s garage, in “home detritus.” He said this was combined with the fact that it was found inside a damaged box surrounded by debris. – could suggest that Biden forgot about them.
“Furthermore, Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited in both his 2017 recorded interview with his ghostwriter and his 2023 interview with our office,” the report states. “And his cooperation with our investigation, including by telling the government that documents relating to Afghanistan were in his garage in Delaware, led some jurors to believe that he acted intentionally, that he violated the law. likely to convince you that you did not act with the intention of violating the law and that you committed an innocent mistake” – as the law requires. ”
Hoar also said that Biden’s conversations with the ghostwriter were “painful, as since 2017, Biden has struggled to remember events and has at times strained to read and communicate what he wrote in his notes.” “It is often too late,” he said.
Prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge him with obstruction of justice after learning that the ghostwriter had deleted audio recordings of Zwonitzer that had “significant evidentiary value.” After turning over Zwonitzer’s computer and external hard drive, the FBI was able to recover most of the deleted files, the report said.
CNN’s Devan Cole contributed to this report.