Biden willfully disclosed classified materials while he was a private citizen.

But we we are going to charge Donald Trump with that crime.

Biden willfully retained and disclosed to a ghostwriter classified materials while he was a private citizen after his vice presidency, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and notebooks with Biden’s handwritten notes implicating sensitive intelligence sources, according to a report from special counsel Robert Hur, made public Thursday.

Hur said in the report that he didn’t think prosecutors could pursue a criminal case against Biden over the classified material, in part because there were some innocent explanations for Biden hanging on to the material that jurors might find convincing. “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,” the report said. 

Hur cited several material distinctions between the Trump and Biden cases, including that, according to prosecutors, Trump refused to relinquish all the documents in his possession, lied to investigators and sought to obstruct their repeated efforts to get them back. In contrast, Hur wrote, Biden immediately surrendered his to the National Archives and Justice Department, consented to searches of his homes, sat for an interview in October with investigators and otherwise cooperated.

Had them for years but also turned them over immediately?

Let's be clear here folks. Joe Biden turned over Vice Presidential documents over somewhere in the vicinity of five years after he left office. He would have had Senate documents for much longer than that.

To suggest that he provided classified documents to a ghost writer and moved them between offices and houses and garages for five years, but also turned them over "immediately" is a contrast in logical reality. You cannot both use them for years and turn them over immediately. It simply is not possible without changing the meaning of the word "immediately". The reality is that Biden had his own people search for them after he got caught still having them. To suggest this is cooperation or immediate is simply untrue.

Meanwhile, the FBI raided Trump's home in a manner that probably broke the law. The Presidential Records Act states that only the incumbent President may view Presidential records for five years after the incumbent leaves office. They raided his home and took everything about a year and half after he left office. That is three and a half years prior to when anyone else is supposed to even view them.

Moreover, for the first time since the Presidential Records act was passed, the National Archives demanded physical control of all of his records within weeks of him leaving the White House. All other Presidents were allowed to take their documents to a place of their choosing and in all other instances NARA took "technical" control of said documents, rather than physical custody. They did so, because the law prohibits them from doing anything with those records for at least five years. The hypocrisy and double standard is astonishing.

Biden cannot be charges because he is a senile old man with a bad memory

This will be the headline in many conservative outlets and the part that liberal media will try to bury. Will it be an issue? I don't know. Hillary Clinton testified under oath that she could not be prosecuted for classified document crimes because she was not smart enough to understand a classified document. She testified that she believed the many documents marked with a red "C" for classified were all just three part memos that happened to be missing parts A and B. She pretended that she did not understand this whole blackberry technology stuff enough to be held accountable. She still won the Democratic nomination and most everyone understood that it was a ploy.

So this is slightly different, but you are already hearing apologists suggest that Special Prosecutor Hur is a bad man who mischaracterized events to make Joe look bad. I am sure that others might suggest that Joe (like Hillary) was just playing a hand, simply acting like a fool for plausible deniability.

Bottom line

I still believe that the ultimate problem with this report is the hypocrisy and the fact that most people will seem just as confused as I am as to how you can turn something over years later and have a prosecutor say it was immediate. I think the fact that Hur found that tapes he provided to a ghost writer were erased provides proof of obstruction, which is another point of hypocrisy. We still have no clue what other documents Joe Biden may or may not have otherwise destroyed or is still hiding. After all, the FBI has not raided any of Joe Biden's residences.

So there will be no criminal charges. That was a given going in. But otherwise, this is about as damning of a report as Trump and folks could have hoped for. The ammunition provided is overflowing.