Biden delivers remarks after special counsel releases report on handling of classified documents

Speaking from the White House on Thursday evening, President Joe Biden said he "Cooperated completely," and threw up no roadblocks and "sought no delays," in a special counsel probe. 

A report was released earlier on Thursday in which special counsel Robert Hur found evidence that Biden willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen, including about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, but concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.

In his remarks, Biden angrily lashed out at the special counsel and denied Hur's assertion that he shared any classified information. 

"I did not share classified information. I did not share it with my ghostwriter," Biden said.

In the special counsel's report, Hur took pains to note the multiple reasons why prosecutors did not believe they could prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Those include Biden’s "limited memory" both during his 2017 recorded conversations with the ghostwriter and in an interview with investigators last year in which, prosecutors say, he could not immediately remember the years in which he served as vice president. 

US President Joe Biden speaks about the Special Counsel report in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 8, 2024 in a surprise last-minute addition to his schedule for the day.

Hur said it was possible Biden could have found those records at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after.

Biden insists ‘my memory is fine’

"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," the report says

Biden insisted that he did not share classified information and has no idea how boxes with documents ended up in his garage.

READ MORE: Biden kept classified documents, special counsel says, but no criminal charges warranted

During his remarks, Biden took aim at Donald Trump, Biden's likely opponent in November's presidential election, over a criminal indictment charging the former president with illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. 

Despite abundant differences between the cases, Trump immediately seized on the special counsel report to portray himself as a victim of a "two-tiered system of justice."