He was trying to stay above the fray. Brendan, i have not read as mike has, the full transcript. I read the New York Times analysis of it. Again, something for everybody. Times when joe biden, they point out, couldnt remember specific dates. Didnt have specific memory of how some of these documents were handled but they also said to mikes point about sense of humor, mr. Biden went into great detail about many manners, the transcript shows. He made jokes over the two days, teasing the prosecutors and at certain points, he corrected his interrogators when they were the ones who misspoke. Is it clear to you on either side, brendan, that one side or the other walks away with something politically advantageous . Well i think to answer that question, you have to think about where we started from. When this report came out, it was an absolute bombshell, really underscoring the president s difficulty politically with his age. It was a gift to republicans. Now, when you get to a congressional hearing, things arent so clean. You dont get clean shots. So i think the goal for democrats here was to muddle the situation, to fight it to a draw and theyve clearly done that here. So i think that is a huge win. Now, i think republicans were going in thinking this was going to be another chance to have this Special Counsel sit up there and ridicule the president. He clearly wasnt going to do that. He was playing goalie all morning long for both parties. Not letting either side score a point. So politically, it may not be such a clear win for democrats but if you look at it in the context of where we thought this report was going to take us, you could easily say they have done their job. Brendan, im going to let you go because i know youve been sitting patiently and you have somewhere else you need to be, but thank you. Ken, we went into this hearing assuming there would be this huge focus on joe bidens age, memory. There was more of that as it went on. I wouldnt say it necessarily dominated. I want to play just a little bit of robert hur speaking to his decision to characterize biden as an elderly man with a poor memory. Here it is. Evidence and the president himself put his memory squarely at issue. My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president s memory was necessary and accurate and fair. But then he also said under repeated questioning that he was fully cooperative. One of the democrats read the part of the 345page report where they said you know, typically, if youre looking at a jury and you are open, youre the one who reports that you have the documents, youre the one who opens up your house and says come on and take a look and then does this fivehour interview, most jurors are not going to be predisposed to think youre trying to hide something. How difficult is this in a situation like this, ken . For doj, for prosecutors. It seems like its a no win situation. And for rob hur, a career public servant, its excruciating. As a journalist, if i report a fair and accurate story, i feel like ive done my job and maybe hur will eventually feel like that. But right now, its got to be unpleasant. In terms of the memory stuff which hes been so criticized for including, i just want to offer the alternative story to what anthony told you. The view though of the career Senior Justice Department official that reviewed this matter after mr. Bidens lawyers objected to that language was that it was perfectly appropriate. That it was proper to include because this was a Declination Memo where hur had to explain to the Attorney General why he wasnt bringing charges even though mr. Biden was on tape saying i found classified documents back in 2017 when he didnt turn them in to the fbi. You heard republicans hammering that today. So he was getting it from both sides and you know, in this kind of a setting, he doesnt get a lot of chance to respond. But its worth remembering, rob hur was nominated by donald trump to be the maryland u. S. Attorney. He was confirmed unanimously by the u. S. Senate and when he was appointed to be Special Counsel, i dont remember a lot of objection from democrats. He spent a year investigating this. Hes come up with conclusions that have angered both sides and hes really getting hammered for it. All right, so, about, ken is one of the best reporters on the doj beat but i want to respond. There are things that are Black And White and things that are gray. On Black And White on the facts and the law, it was completely appropriate for hur to find that President Biden or Anyone Around him should not face charges. The gray area is subjective. And this is the how. And the language hur used in the report to describe President Biden. He could have said the president had limited recall, for example. He didnt do that. He was clever with his language and wrapped it in words that enabled him to stay within the four corners of what is appropriate with doj. It was clever. And it was deceptive and quite frankly, it was wrong. All right. To the whole point of specifically what hur was tasked to do. He got into a little bit of an change with darrell iissa. In this case, did you reach conclusion this man was outright innocent . Thats not reflected in my report. I viewed my task of explaining my decision, the evidence, would a conviction of trial be the probable outcome. You did not reach an idea that he had committed no wrong. You reached a conclusion that you would not prevail at trial and therefore did not take it forward. Correct . Correct, congressman. Is that what he was tasked with doing, to say i exonerate that person or was it to do an investigation, show the good, the bad, and the ugly and let it be . I think the second option is closer to what the mandate of any Special Counsel is. We can quibble about how much further he went than that and how he caused damage to somebody who he determined shouldnt be charged by going Above And Beyond that. But i think the mandate is not to exonerate somebody. The mandate is to make an up or down prosecutorial decision or really a recommendation to the Attorney General as to whether someone should be charged then to defend that decision, which hur believes he did. Others will take issue with how well he did that job. Right. That was his remit. And he did that but with this kind of extra flourish on the side. Julie, bottom line. What are lawmakers trying to get out of this . Reporter depends on what side of the aisle you sit on. I thought one of the more notable moments in hurs testimony was toward the end. It was when chairman jordan had questioned hur if he believes that the congress should have the audio tapes of those interviews with the president that took place on october 8th and 9th. This is something the department of justice said they were still reviewing the classification forward. Jordan also blasted the process by which the transcripts were received by Congress Just today. And hur responded that he took all of the evidence, not just the transcripts, but also the audio into account when writing his report, when making certain recommendations. I also had an exchange with Eric Swalwell which is that he omitted something things and did not include in the report. Take a listen. Is it your impression that hur deliberately omitted certain things from his actual report . You know, whether hur omitted something intentionally or not, it was pointed out today that he did tell the president in the interview that the president had a photographic memory. Its just pretty interesting that was not put in his final report but rather the smear job on the president s memory. Reporter so, chris, while other democrats had also questioned hurs intentions, they pointed out the fact hes a registered republican to which hur responded he did not have any political calculations when it came to writing this report. Swalwel also said if he was doing so because he one day wants a job in the trump administration. Hur declined that had anything to do with his calculations but over the last four hours, and again, this hearing is not over. You heard pretty much the same lines from democrats and republicans. Republicans trying to protect the former president and so well see what happens here after the break, chris. Ken buck, who has been on the program on a number of occasions and who has sometimes broken with his party of republicans, is just talking about the fact that this hearing is a symbol of the dysfunction in washington and although we knew he was not going to run for reelection, he has just put out a statement. What does it say, julie . Reporter yeah, exactly. He put out a statement, chris, this is really notable. This makes republicans margins even smaller. Im a journalist. Not that good at math so well calculate later, but they were tight. He wrote in part it has been an honor to serve the people of colorados fourth district. He said today im announcing i will depart congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process as well as spending more time in colorado with my family. He had broken with his party as you mentioned on key votes including the impeachment of mayorkas causing it to fail. He said before he would be retiring but this is news that he is leaving at the end of next week. He has yet to talk in the hearing behind me, but he is on the judiciary behind me. I saw him walking back and forth. His reaction to the hearing in real time. It was one of the things he noted in why he chose to early up his retirement, if you will, but certainly this is going to mean big problems for speaker johnson. Especially when you look at whats on the docket. When they have to fund the government, theyre trying to do it in a partisan way, and they have the aid bill the Senate Passed that theyre also trying to do in their own way. Every single vote counts and certainly this is Bad News Bears for johnson. Were understanding ken buck made it clear hes not going to walk away from politics. He wants to get involved in this years election. Meaning some of the congressional races. Both the house and is that the. We should also say that under colorado law, a candidate or the governor can set a date for a vote to replace ken buck. Now it has to be before 90 days. So whatever 90 days before the election in november is, lets see if that happens. But again, Ken Buck Making The Decision that next week, hes going to say goodbye and get involved in the campaign but in a very different way than some people might have thought before obviously he made his decision clear that he was going to no longer run for reelection. Julie, mike, i want to thank you. Anthony and lisa, youre going to stay with me. I want to bring in chuck rosenberg. So, chuck, im wondering if the purpose of a Special Counsel is to shield an investigation from political influence, realistically, has that time come and gone . How effective in the world we live in now can a Special Counsel be . He or she can do their job and report the facts but if the goal is to insulate the Special Counsel from accusations of politics or partisanship, i think youre right. That time has come and gone. Heres whats disappointing to me. And i dont think you can go wrong underestimating the dignity of a house judiciary hearing. There are real issues about how we ought to conduct investigations like this. Whether the independent counsel statute, which expired almost a quarter of a century ago, was a better model. Or whether the Special Counsel regulations are a better model or whether there may be some third way and not one person so far today has even broached that topic. These are just a bunch of partisans left and right trying to win each question and hearing and trying to win each day. I think there are much more important questions of Public Policy that have been completely and utterly ignored. So yet again, i am disappointed with the House Judiciary Committee and their ability to stage a hearing. I want to expand the lens and talk about the Special Counsel generally. There was an essay in the New York Times times today, quote, a Special Counsel is supposed inl sure the Justice Department can conduct investigations that are and appear to be fair and apolitical. Special counsels and their precursors have for decades failed to achieve this goal. A failure thats reached a peak with two Special Counsels having an extraordinary impact on a president ial election. It is time to kill the Special Counsel institution, but to the point of what is the alternative in a situation like this and in something so highly politically charged that a president ial election could hang in the balance. Is there an alternative . Theres no perfect alternative, chris. Theres no perfect solution. This is a really, really hard problem. But i agree with what jack smith, what Jack Goldsmith wrote and what you read. I urge people to read his New York Times editorial today. I think theres a better way but marginally so. That would be to leave big, important, sensitive, difficult cases to the ordinary mechanisms of the United States department of justice. Its not going to please everyone but thats not the goal. One of the things i dislike most about the Special Counsel regulations is that rob hur was required to do something we never do as president ial prosecutors, which is to write a Declination Memo, which he knew was going to become public. He writes a confidential memo to the Attorney General of the United States but mr. Garland had previously said that to the extent possible he was going to make all of these types of reports public. That is a terrible way to conduct business as a federal prosecutor. We open cases all the time. We close cases all the time. Some of the cases we close, we close without bringing charges and we do not speak publicly about why we close cases. So to that extent, chris, i think the Special Counsel regulations are flawed. I agree its time to kill the Special Counsel. There is no perfect alternative but if i was in charge for a day, i would leave it to the mechanisms of the department of justice to bring cases, either prosecute them or decline them in the ordinary fashion. Chuck rosenberg, thank you. Now, one issue brought up time and again by lawmakers in the hur hearing is where exactly president s biden and trump kept their Classified Information. President biden did not insert Executive Privilege or claim absolute immunity for president ial crimes. He did not hide boxes of documents under his bed or in a bathtub. Is it now okay if i take home top secret documents, store them in my garage and read portions of them to friends or associates . Congressman, i wouldnt recommend it, but i dont want to entertain any hypotheticals. Is it okay . Like, i can do that now . I want to bring in jonathan, former senior director of the National Security counsel in the trump administration. Lets just be clear as this report makes it clear, these are not the same. What happened with donald trump and classified documents and what happened with joe biden are completely different. Having said that, and setting aside what is prosecutable and not prosecutable. Classified documents were found with both biden and trump and mike pence. Is there something wrong with the system . A National Security protocol that needs to be addressed . Thanks for having me. As a former intelligence professional and someone who served on the nsc for a year under President Trump. I think there are some things that need to be changed with the distribution of these classified materials. Even when theyre going all the way up to the president as commander in chief. I thought a lot about this now that ive been out of government the last few years. Maybe its time to you know, picking up on what chuck said previously about changes perhaps to the Special Counsel process. Maybe there needs to be a change to allowing hard copied documented to stay with very senior officials. Hard copy classified documents, even if they need to have that information to make Foreign Policy decisions. But is it really a wise choice to leave those behind. I for one now that weve given all the examples over the years, maybe now is the time to change that and maybe they can still have access to those materials electronically but perhaps just leaving the hard copy behind and then perhaps taking the rest, that it could be mishandled, that perhaps might need to be relooked. When you look at these two investigations, its clear where they think the buck stops during the hearing. The sound of a Biden Press Conference was played where he said he wished he had personally supervised the handling of documents himself when he left office. I mean, is that even reasonable in his case and the case of any former president or Vice President . I dont know. Prosecutors say when the documents were found, he turned them over, unlike trump, but does and should the buck always stop with them . As the president , commander in chief, they have access to all of the intelligence that the u. S. Intelligence community provides and again, how that intell