The long withheld special counsel Rob Hur audio of his interview with then-President Joe Biden, now revealed, is providing audible context to the already published report and transcript of the Oct. 8-9, 2023, sit-downs.
Nearly six hours of audio is now circulating online and has been independently obtained by Newsmax.
While a transcript of the interview was released, the Biden White House and Democrats had sought to keep the audio from being made public during the 2024 presidential campaign.
The White House handlers and Democrats feared it would be damaging to the campaign to have American voters hear the sitting president failing to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected, or why he had classified documents he should not have had.
Hur's report declined to pursue a case against Biden for his handling and illegal retention of classified documents after he left the White House in January 2017, because his report concluded a jury would find Biden to be "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," making any prosecution difficult.
"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," Hur's report read.
The audio, as heard by Newsmax, showed Biden at times confused and other times emotional, particularly when it related to memory of his late son Beau, who died of brain cancer May 30, 2015, when Biden was vice president.
But Biden did seem comfortable from the outset, cracking jokes at times – even saying just moments in "the FBI knows my house better than I do." He also said, "I'm a young man, so it's not a problem" when asked if the questioning from Hur would be confusing to him at times.
But, ultimately, the audio revealed mental lapses and awkward long pauses that have even been derided by liberal media upon hearing the interview from the special counsel interview Oct. 8, 2023, just one day after Hamas terrorists launched its deadly attack on Israel.
A second round of the interview was recorded Oct. 9, 2023, around 12:12 p.m. ET.
Hur's interview homed in on the retention of classified documents at Biden's Chain Bridge Road, Maryland, home and the Penn Biden Center, but the then-president struggled to map out keep details or where he retained or accessed classified documents.
"Well, um, I, I, I, I don't know," Biden responded to Hur around 1 hour, 44 minutes into the interview. "This is what, 2017-18 in that area?"
"Yes, sir," Hur responded, before Biden gets untracked in the interview for the most remarkable period in the nearly six hours of audio.
"Remember, in this time frame, um, my son is either been deployed or is dying," Biden continued. "Um, and, uh.
"And so. It was a.
"And by the way there was still a lot of people at the time, when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president."
That latter remark seemed to suggest Biden was referring to former President Barack Obama and that he was confusing 2017 details with details from before the 2015 period when it was decided he would not run in the 2016 presidential election.
"It's not a mean thing to say: He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did," Biden continued, referring to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"So I hadn't, I hadn't at this point, even though I'm at Penn, I hadn't walked away from the idea that I might run for office again. You know, if I ran again, I'd be running for president.
"And, uh. And, so.
"What was happening, though, what month did Beau die? Uh? May 30."
Another voice, not Biden – perhaps Biden's personal counsel Bob Bauer, who had to answer Biden's questions for him at various times through the interview – injected: "2015."
"Was it 2015 he died?" Biden asked.
"And what's happened in the meantime is that, uh. As.
"And Trump gets elected in November of 2017?"
He is prompted again: "2016."
"16, 2016," Biden continues. "All right, so."
"Why do I have 2017 here?" Biden asks, potentially looking at notes.
He needed to be prompted again.
"That when you left office, 2017," the counselor said.
"And in 2017," Biden picked it up again with pauses, "Beau had passed. "And, uh, this is personal.
"The genesis of the book and the title, 'Promise Me, Dad' was a, uh – I know you're all close with your sons and daughters, but Beau was like my right arm and Hunt [Hunter Biden] was my left.
"These guys were a year and a day apart they could finish each other's sentences, and ... Beau, I used to go home on the train and in the period I was in the Senate.
"Anyway."
Biden mumbled something inaudible under his breath then before a pause.
"There was pressure," Biden picked up. "Not pressure. Beau knew how much I adored him, and, uh: I know this sounds, maybe this sounds so.
"Everybody knew how close we were. There was not anybody in the world who wondered whether or not.
"Anyway."
Hur asked: "Sir, I am wondering if this is a good time to take a break, briefly?"
Biden rejected that.
"No, let me just keep going to get it done," Biden replied.
"I know there are a lot of other things going on in the world that demand your attention," Hur said just over one minute into his introduction.
"We may get interrupted by one," Biden, more alert at the outset, interjected.
"Understood, understood," Hur said.
"I hope not," Biden continued. "I just got of the phone with Bibi Netanyahu."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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