House Republican leadership addressed the special counsel's report on President Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, blasting the "two-tiered system of justice" but also asserting that the president is "unfit for the Oval Office."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., released a joint statement after special counsel Robert Hur report documented how Biden "willfully" retained highly classified documents while exonerating him as a "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
"The Special Counsel's finding that President Biden 'willfully retained and disclosed classified materials' and engaged in practices that 'present serious risks to national security' is deeply disturbing," the leaders wrote.
"Not only does it demonstrate the President's recklessness, but exposes a two-tiered system of justice that is indicting one President with politically motivated charges while carrying water for another amid similar allegations."
Former President Donald Trump is facing a criminal trial in Florida by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly hoarding classified documents. That trial is scheduled for May. Hur's report acknowledged the criminal charges against Trump, writing, "several material distinctions between Mr. Trump's case and Mr. Biden's are clear."
"Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts," Hur wrote.
Hur explained why he was not bringing charges against Biden.
"We have also considered 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," Hur wrote. "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."
The leadership team said, "Among the most disturbing parts of this report is the Special Counsel's justification for not recommending charges: namely that the President's memory had such 'significant limitations' that he could not convince a jury that the President held a 'mental state of willfulness' that a serious felony requires," they wrote.
"A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office."