Special counsel Robert Hur recommended in his 388-page report released in February that Biden, 81, should not face charges for mishandling classified documents, but noted that the case involved “an elderly man with memory lapses.” On the recommendation of his attorney general, Merrick Garland, Biden invoked his “executive privilege” to reject the request, White House Counsel Ed Siskel informed the top Republicans on the House committees investigating the matter on Tuesday. “The absence of any legitimate need for these audio recordings exposes their likely intended use: to take them out of context, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” Siskel wrote in the letter to the two committee chairmen, Jim Jordan and James Comer. Garland justified his recommendation to assert executive privilege by arguing that complying with the congressional requests would “impair the ability to conduct sensitive investigations in the future.” Appointed in January 2023 by Garland, the special counsel concluded in his report that Biden “knowingly retained and disclosed classified documents following the end of his vice presidency, while he was a private citizen.” However, the prosecutor argued in the report that “prosecution is not warranted,” suggesting that a jury would give “an elderly, well-intentioned man with a long history of public service the benefit of the doubt.” The prosecutor noted, for example, that during questioning the president could not recall the year his eldest son, Beau, died. Congressional Democrats have criticized the report, calling the comments about Biden’s mental acuity “gratuitous” and “politically motivated,” but Republican opponents in the House of Representatives have seized on the report to argue that Biden is “unfit” for office. Testifying before the two House committees in March, Hur defended his comments about Biden’s memory lapses. “I did not sugarcoat my explanation, nor did I gratuitously impugn the president,” the prosecutor said. The appointment of the special counsel in January 2023 followed the discovery of classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president (2009-2017), including some related to US military involvement in Afghanistan, at his Wilmington, Delaware, residence and a former office. Read Also: Scholz warns of protectionism after US tariffs on China (Portuguese version)