Legal analysts on Thursday were stunned by special counsel Robert Hurs decision to release a report attacking President Joe Bidens age and memory while also clearing him in the classified documents case.
Speaking on MSNBC , former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann called Hurs commentary entirely inappropriate, irrelevant, and gratuitous.
It is also exactly what youre not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions, said Weissmann, who noted that the Justice Departments lingo is put up or shut up.
He said, You either decide to go forward, that there is proof here, or you dont say anything at all with respect to your opinions about the case.
Weissmann said former FBI Director James Comey also flunked this test when he announced before the 2020 election that he would not charge Hillary Clinton but then attacked her anyway.
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The appropriate thing to do there is to just say were declining, theres insufficient proof, he said. It is not a time to have a press conference to state, Oh, by the way, let me give you my personal views.
Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal agreed, saying he wrote the current special counsel regulations, which say there shouldnt be a public report at the end and certainly not with a list of adjectives.
Im not aware of anything quite like this, in which youve got a special counsel going after the sitting president for being too old and having a faulty memory, he added. As Andrew said, totally gratuitous.
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See the full conversation with MSNBCs Alicia Menendez:
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