WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. prosecutor who produced a politically explosive report that raised questions about President Joe Biden’s memory will testify to a Republican-controlled House of Representatives committee in March, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Special Counsel Robert Hur will appear on March 12 before the House Judiciary Committee, which is playing a lead role in the chamber’s impeachment inquiry into Biden, the source said.
Hur, a former U.S. attorney in Maryland during Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, led a 15-month investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Early this month he issued a report saying he declined to seek charges against Biden and he would be difficult to convict. Hur said the president would present himself to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The Biden administration called the report politically motivated ahead of the November election. Biden, 81, is seeking a second term. Trump, 77, is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in the race.
Republicans have seized upon the report, saying it demonstrates an unequal justice system. Trump was indicted in June for mishandling classified documents.
“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” House Republican leaders said in a statement after the report’s release.
Prosecutors said Trump moved classified documents around his home in Florida to prevent them from being found and discussed with his lawyers the possibility of lying to government officials trying to recover the documents.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
