WASHINGTON (NewsNation) First lady Jill Biden issued a stern rebuke on Saturday after the special counsel’s report of Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials claimed the president did not remember when his son died, calling it an “inaccurate, personal and political attack” on her husband.
“Rather than just saying the case was closed, as they have for others, the Special Counsel claimed that Joe ‘couldn’t remember the year his son died,’” Jill Biden wrote in an email to campaign donors. “Believe me, like anyone who has lost a child, Beau and his death never leave him.”
“We should give everyone grace, and I can’t imagine someone would try to use our son’s death to score political points,” she said, adding, “If you’ve experienced a loss like that, you know that you don’t measure it in years – you measure it in grief.”
“May 30th is a day forever etched on our hearts,” Jill Biden said of Beau Biden’s death. “It shattered me, it shattered our family… What helped me, and what helped Joe, was to find purpose. That’s what keeps Joe going, serving you and the country we love.”
Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the investigation after a cache of documents related to Afghanistan and national security were found in Biden’s Delaware home in 2022, released a 345-page report Thursday. Hur concluded that Mr. Biden “willfully” retained classified documents but “no criminal charges are warranted.”
Hur acknowledged that part of the reason he was not recommending charges was because Biden would likely present himself as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” to a jury. The report cites Biden’s “faulty memory” during interviews with investigators regarding milestones in his own life. It noted: “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
Hours after the report was released, Biden defiantly rejected the claim about Beau Biden during a press conference at the White House: “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.’”
“I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” Biden said, motioning to rosary beads on his wrist that he’s worn every day since his son died.
Beau Biden died of brain cancer on May 30, 2015. He was 46. “Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known,” Biden said in a statement at the time of his death.
Jill Biden also addressed concerns about her husband’s age in her email to campaign donors, after the special counsel’s report portrayed the president as having “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
“Joe is 81, that’s true, but he’s 81 doing more in an hour than most people do in a day,” the first lady wrote. “His age, with his experience and expertise, is an incredible asset and he proves it every day.”
