{"id":15358,"date":"2024-02-10T12:49:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T12:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/10\/hawley-says-garland-should-invoke-25th-amendment-if-doj-declines-to-charge-biden-one-or-the-other\/"},"modified":"2024-02-10T12:49:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T12:49:32","slug":"hawley-says-garland-should-invoke-25th-amendment-if-doj-declines-to-charge-biden-one-or-the-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/10\/hawley-says-garland-should-invoke-25th-amendment-if-doj-declines-to-charge-biden-one-or-the-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawley says Garland should invoke 25th Amendment if DOJ declines to charge Biden: \u2018One or the other\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said that Attorney General Merrick Garland is at a crossroads after Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to charge President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents because of his mental state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hur\u2019s report, which was made public on Thursday, found that after a months-long investigation, Biden \u2018willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,\u2019 but he concluded that no criminal charges were warranted, because based on \u2018direct interactions with and observations of\u2019 the president, Hur and his team said \u2018[i]t would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him \u2014 by then a former president well into his eighties \u2014 of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hawley, who also served as attorney general of Missouri from 2017 to 2019, said Friday that Garland \u2018can\u2019t have it both ways\u2019 by not charging the president and also declining to recommend invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which authorizes the vice president and a majority of the president\u2019s cabinet or Congress to decide whether the president is unable to perform their duties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m calling on [Garland] publicly now to do what I think is required under the law in the Constitution . . . either charge the president, or he will go to the cabinet and tell them, \u2018I believe we have to invoke the 25th Amendment.\u2019 He\u2019s got to do one or the other,\u2019 Hawley told Fox News Digital in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018If he doesn\u2019t, it will just confirm what everybody thinks, which is that there are two tiers of justice and that Garland himself is completely complicit in the corruption of this administration,\u2019 Hawley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawley noted that every prosecutor has to weigh whether they can get a conviction, which ultimately informs the charging decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in Hawley\u2019s view, what is \u2018unique\u2019 in Hur\u2019s case is that he concluded that the elements of a crime were present, but chose not to charge based on the president\u2019s mental state.<\/p>\n

\u2018He concluded that the elements of a crime were present, namely that the president had willfully retained and disclosed classified information, so he knew it. I mean, the report makes it very clear he knew that it was classified information, this was done over years and decades \u2014 not just a couple of months \u2014 and he willfully did it,\u2019 says Hawley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018But he ultimately recommends against prosecution, not because he didn\u2019t do it, but because, basically, Biden is mentally unfit to be prosecuted. Because he doesn\u2019t think that he can get a jury to ultimately convict, because the president is so mentally unstable,\u2019 Hawley added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garland has ultimate authority over whether to agree with Hur\u2019s recommendations or to pursue charges against the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawley says that Garland\u2019s \u2018only recourse,\u2019 should he decide not to press charges \u2014 noting that DOJ brought charges against former president Donald Trump on \u2018precisely the same grounds \u2014 is to go to the rest of Biden\u2019s cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018It can\u2019t be that . . . \u2018He\u2019s totally fit to continue in office, but we\u2019re not going to prosecute him.\u2019 I mean, that\u2019s just \u2014 that would be the most brazen miscarriage of justice and degradation of the rule of law,\u2019 Hawley charged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Biden in a press conference late Thursday night addressed the report, saying his memory is \u2018fine,\u2019 and defended his re-election campaign, adding that he is \u2018the most qualified person in this country to be president.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hur described Biden as a \u2018sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Biden said Thursday night that he agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m well-meaning, and I\u2019m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I\u2019m doing,\u2019 Biden said. \u2018I\u2019ve been president. I put this country back on its feet. I don\u2019t need his recommendation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Biden added: \u2018My memory is fine.\u2019<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hur said in the report that Biden, during his interview with the special counsel\u2019s team, could not remember key details, such as when he was vice president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden\u2019s memory was worse,\u2019 the report states. \u2018He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (\u2018if it was 2013 \u2014 when did I stop being Vice President?\u2019), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (\u2018in 2009, am I still Vice President?\u2019).\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,\u2019 the report continued. \u2018And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he \u2018had a real difference\u2019 of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,\u2019 the report said.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawley\u2019s comments come after Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., sent a letter to Garland Thursday night, sharing her \u2018grave concerns\u2019 following Hur\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

\u2018After 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,\u2019 Tenney wrote. \u2018Special Counsel\u2019s reasoning was alarming.\u2019<\/p>\n

Fox News Digtial\u2019s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said that Attorney General Merrick Garland is at a crossroads after Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to charge President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents because of his mental state.\u00a0 Hur\u2019s report, which was made public on Thursday, found that after a months-long investigation, Biden \u2018willfully retained and disclosed <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}