Special counsel Robert Hur on Thursday published a 345-page report which stated that Biden, 81, knowingly “retained and disclosed" documents with classified information at his home, and struggled to recall key dates in his life.
In his defense statement of dropping the charges against Biden, Hur argued it would be difficult to "convince a jury that they should convict him - by then a former president well into his 80s of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness".
"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," wrote Hur.
The report is an outcome of a 15-month-long investigation consisting of 173 interviews with 147 witnesses, including over five hours of interviews with the president.
When Biden was being interviewed, Hur’s prosecution team observed that his memory was "severely limited".
The special counsel of the Justice Department stated that he could not recall when he was vice president (2009-2017), or "even within several years, when his son Beau died" (2015).
The top secret files were found at Biden's house in Wilmington, Delaware, and former private office from 2022 to 2023.
The findings come after another investigation accused former president Donald Trump of mishandling classified documents after the end of his tenure, the trial of which is due in May.
Drawing a distinction between Biden and Trump’s case, the special counsel stated that Biden returned the documents while Trump allegedly declined to do so.
According to experts, the episode is set to cause further embarrassment for Biden, as he aims to serve another presidential term.
Opinion polls show the age of the president is a matter of concern for American voters in anticipation of this year’s race to presidency.
However, during a press conference on Thursday, Biden confidently stated that he is the most qualified candidate for the position.
"I am well-meaning," he said. "And [I] am elderly. I know what the hell I'm doing. I put this country back on its feet."
There have been not only one, but dozens of instances throughout his tenure that manifest the demented state of mind of the “elderly” president.
During his Thursday remarks, at one point Biden appeared to confuse the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.
On Wednesday at a campaign fundraiser in New York, he reportedly referred to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who passed away in 2017, as talking to him about European concerns on the attempt to stop the certification of his 2020 election win, mixing him up with Angela Merkel.
Meanwhile in Nevada on Sunday, he apparently confused François Mitterrand, the former French president who died in 1996, with France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron.
Presidency contender in the Republican nomination race and former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley has criticized both Biden and Trump for being too old to hold office, calling them “grumpy old men” in a campaign advertisement.
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