Congressional hearing on the Joe Biden classified documents probe turns into a proxy campaign battle

Lawmakers turned a Tuesday hearing on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a proxy battle between the Democratic President and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, as a newly released transcript of Biden’s testimony last fall showed that he repeatedly insisted he never meant to retain classified information after he left the vice presidency.

Special Counsel Robert Hur, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, stood steadfastly by the assessments in his 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges.

“What I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe,” Hur said. “I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the President unfairly.”

The transcript of hours of interviews between Biden and the Special Counsel released Tuesday provide a more textured picture of the roughly one-year investigation, filling in some of the gaps left by Hur’s and Biden’s accounting of the exchanges. But there was no guarantee the hearing or transcript would alter preconceived notions about the President, the Special Counsel who investigated him, or Trump, particularly in a hard-fought election year.