Special Counsel Robert Hur only revealed President Joe Biden’s mental incompetency in order to explain why he was not being prosecuted, Breitbart Economics Editor John Carney told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in a Friday interview.
Kudlow led a panel discussion with Carney, National Review Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry, and Forbes Media Chairmen and Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes about why Biden’s own Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed the special counsel’s report to include such damning information about his mental decline.
Carney argued that Hur’s descriptions of the president’s mental state were the DOJ’s only basis for not charging Biden in light of the report’s finding that he had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
“The counsel had to explain why they weren’t going to charge him because it’s very clear he violated the law,” Carney said. “The special counsel believes he did so willfully. They just believe that a jury looking at Joe Biden would say, ‘I don’t know. That guy has no idea what’s going on.’ And, so, we don’t have a chance of getting him convicted. So, we can’t charge him because the FBI guidelines say don’t charge somebody if you don’t think there’s a chance of [conviction].”
“They think he willfully committed the crime,” he continued. “They just don’t think they could get a conviction. That’s why they put it in there.”
Photo from the Hur report showing unsecured classified documents in Biden’s garage. Source: DOJ
Kudlow asked the panel for their take on what he characterized as a “conspiracy theory” that “behind the scenes” some Democratic Party “bigwigs” might have encouraged Biden’s press conference yesterday “knowing he’d make a fool of himself and this would tighten the noose around his neck, and they’re going to get rid of him.”
The theory goes, as Kudlow explained, that “this whole thing’s a plot. The Democratic establishment wants to get rid of Joe Biden. So, they’re encouraging him to do all the nutty things he’s doing.”
Forbes argued that there might be something to that theory and even suggested that First Lady Jill Biden might have something to do with why her husband has refused to step aside.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if… a few months ago, people go to Biden and say… ‘You had a good first term. Get out while the getting’s good. They’re not going to be able to do anything to your son anymore because you’re leaving the scene. And ride on into the sunset, saying I’m the greatest progressive since Franklin Roosevelt.’ He wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. Jill Biden’s nickname in Washington is Mrs. Wilson, the wife of Woodrow Wilson, who ran the country for a year and a half when he had a stroke. So, she’s Mrs. Wilson. And I’m sure she said, ‘No, we’re going stick this out. We’re going get another term.’”
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden walk on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington, DC, on Jan. 2, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I think one of the reasons this report was released the way it did—why they didn’t redact it—was they figured, okay, now we have to go to plan B to put it out there that this man is not competent,” Forbes continued. “That’s why I don’t think he’s going to be the Democratic nominee.”
National Review’s Lowry argued that the Democrats have already lost their chance to replace Biden and don’t have a clear alternative to him if they threw the nomination to an open convention.
“I just don’t see it because you’re going to go to an open convention with this double-barreled gun of this Trump candidacy staring you down?” Lowry asked. “Who’s it going to be? Is it going to be Kamala Harris? Is that really better than Joe Biden? If it’s not going to be Kamala Harris, how are you going to jump over this African American woman?”
“I think if they wanted to get rid of him, the thing to do would have been to run a serious primary candidate against him. They didn’t do that. They didn’t have the stomach to do it. And I think now they’re stuck,” Lowry concluded.
The “big winner” in all of this is former President Donald Trump, Kudlow said, arguing that the DOJ’s targeting of Trump’s handling of classified documents—while letting Biden off the hook—revealed the “double standard” and “two-tiered justice system” Trump has been railing against.
“The fact remains that the Presidential Records Act shows presidents have the authority to declassify and take stuff away as long as it’s safekeeping,” Kudlow said. “And [Trump] lives in a fort. Mar-a-Lago is a Secret Service fort…I mean, that’s what it is. Have you ever been there? It’s not that easy to get in, and those guys all know me!”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen on September 14, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Carney agreed and noted that, as president, Trump had the ability to declassify documents in his safekeeping. Biden, on the other hand, had “willfully retained” classified documents at a time when he was merely a senator and vice president.
“I read reports pointing out that Ronald Reagan had taken stuff out of the White House,” Carney said. “But, again, Ronald Reagan was the U.S. president. He’s allowed to declassify anything you want. Donald Trump could take whatever he wants out of the White House and put it in a guarded place in Mar-a-Lago.”
“Joe Biden took these documents when he was a senator, when he was vice president when he did not have the authority to take them,” he continued. “And, frankly, it’s weird that he kept taking these documents. Why did he need them? Why did he keep them? Before he had lost his mind, why did he keep forgetting that he had all these documents everywhere? I understand now he’s clearly lost his competency, but why did he keep them?”
“This report is telling us [that Biden]kept them willfully back when he could do willful things. Now he’s, you know, Mr. Wilson,” Carney explained.
“This is Trump’s campaign slogan! He’s the one candidate in this race who is competent enough to be charged with crimes,” Lowry quipped.
Rebecca Mansour is a Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on X at @RAMansour.