During a news conference, Mr. Biden expressed strong displeasure about a particular line of questioning, stating, “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
The transcript revealed that Mr. Hur did not explicitly inquire about when Beau Biden had passed away. Instead, he pressed Mr. Biden for information regarding papers related to his post-vice presidency work, such as teaching at a think tank, involvement in a cancer project, and writing a book about Beau’s death.
Mr. Biden, who sometimes stutters, began to mix up details and events. He mentioned events from 2015 when Beau passed away and Mr. Biden chose not to run against Hillary Clinton in 2016, while also referencing events from 2017 when he wrote a memoir and decided to run for president in 2020:
BIDEN: Well, um … I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?
HUR: Yes, sir.
BIDEN: Remember, in this time frame, my son is — either been deployed or is dying, and, and so it was — and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president. I’m not — and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t, at this point — even though I’m at Penn, I hadn’t walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I’d be running for president. And, and so what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30 —
RACHEL COTTON, A WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: 2015.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2015.
BIDEN: Was it 2015 he had died?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It was May of 2015.
BIDEN: It was 2015.
ROBERT BAUER, BIDEN’S PERSONAL LAWYER: Or — I’m not sure of the month, sir, but I think that was the year.
MARC KRICKBAUM, HUR’S DEPUTY: That’s right, Mr. President. It —
BIDEN: And what’s happened in the meantime is that as — and Trump gets elected in November of 2017?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: ’16.
BIDEN: ’16, 2016. All right. So — why do I have 2017 here?
ED SISKEL, BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: That’s when you left office, January of 2017.
BIDEN: Yeah, OK. But that’s when Trump gets sworn in, January.
SISKEL: Right.
BAUER: Right, correct.
BIDEN: OK, yeah. And in 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal …
Mr. Biden then went on to recount Beau’s passing, the subsequent book “Promise Me, Dad,” which he wrote based on his son’s wish for him to continue public service, and how he decided to run for president in 2020 after the events in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Biden made several other errors.
The transcript also showed some minor slips that were not noted in Mr. Hur’s report, such as Mr. Biden needing help to recall the name of the National Archives and that fax machines transmit images over phone lines.
Mr. Hur made a significant claim that Mr. Biden “did not remember when he was vice president.” He quoted Mr. Biden as saying, “If it was 2013 — when did I stop being vice president?” and displaying confusion about his time as vice president.
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