Americans are still trying to process the disturbing report from Special Counsel Robert Hur on President Joe Biden’s unquestionable mishandling of classified documents after his time as vice president. It is hard to decide what is more surprising: Biden’s blatant disrespect for the law or the report’s conclusion that he is mentally unfit to stand trial.
We have all watched as Biden stumbled through speeches and down stairs, but this non-partisan special counsel’s report raises concerns about the president’s ability to fulfill the duties of his office to a new level. After concluding that President Biden knowingly and willfully removed, mishandled, and disclosed classified documents repeatedly over a period of decades, Mr. Hur nevertheless recommended that charges not be brought against him, stating that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
The special counsel’s reasoning was alarming. Mr. Hur recited numerous instances in which President Biden exhibited dramatically compromised mental faculties. Among these examples, he lists how the president was not able to recall when he was vice president, or the year his son Beau had passed, and details of a debate over Afghanistan he was a part of in the Obama administration. Hur then describes how even back in 2017, Biden’s interviews with his ghostwriters demonstrated a diminished mental capacity, with him “painfully slow” at times and “with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.” Hur then decides the president exhibits so much evidence of mental decline it is not worth pressing charges.
I need not tell anyone, least of all the special counsel and attorney general, that selective prosecution is morally, ethically, and legally prohibited. We don’t prosecute or decline to prosecute people based on their personalities or on the public’s anticipated perception of them. If the special counsel finds that the evidence forms a reasonable basis to bring charges, he must do so. The Department of Justice cannot ethically bring charges against former president Donald Trump because he has mental acuity and then decline to bring charges against President Biden because of his cognitive decline. President Biden needs to be charged.
Unless he is not mentally competent to stand trial.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Candidly, the special counsel’s report makes a reasonable case that he is not. President Biden’s inability to remember what elected position he held and when he held it is exceptionally concerning. Yet, being unable to remember when one’s child died—even within a time frame of several years—is perhaps even more frightening. The president may, in fact, not be competent to stand trial.
If that is true, President Biden most assuredly lacks the ability to execute his presidential responsibilities. Accordingly, it is incumbent upon the cabinet to begin proceedings to remove the president pursuant to the 25th Amendment of the United States Constitution. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Congress and the states ratified the 25th Amendment to ensure a moment like this would never occur. However, by avoiding public events and interviews, President Biden and his administration have hidden his obvious decline from the American people.
This is nothing short of an emergency and a betrayal. It is obvious from Mr. Hur’s reports that this decline has been noticeable for years. The American people deserve to have a president who is able to protect our homeland, defend our Constitution, faithfully execute the laws of Congress, and is transparent with the nation about his health and mental faculties.
President Biden needs to be charged, or he needs to be removed. There is no middle ground.
Claudia Tenney, a Republican, represents New York’s 24th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.