Special counsel Robert K. Hur stated that President Biden’s $8 million book contract was likely the reason he took notebooks with classified information out of the White House when he left in 2017.

Mr. Hur described in his testimony Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee, about his investigation of Mr. Biden’s possessions of classified documents, audio recordings from 2017, where Mr. Biden acknowledged having classified material.

Mr. Hur stated that the former vice president had read some of his material to his ghostwriter who was helping him write his second memoir. The ghostwriter did not possess a security clearance.

According to Mr. Hur, the President said in the recordings: “I found all the classified papers downstairs.”

Mr. Hur testified more than four-hours, confirming the conclusion of his report from February that Mr. Biden had “strong motivations” to ignore proper procedures to safeguard his classified notebooks because he wanted to sign a book contract with Macmillan Publishers that would pay him an $8 million.

Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that Joe Biden had “8 million reasons” to break the law, take classified information, and share it with a guy who was writing a book. “He knew the rules, but he still broke them.” “For an $8 million advance on a book.”

Mr. Hur left the Justice Department Monday. He said that his investigators had “identified evidence” to support their assessment about Mr. Biden’s motivations for keeping classified documents.

According to Mr. Hur, in addition to the book contract, Mr. Biden likely viewed the notebooks as irreplaceable contemporaneous records of some of the key moments of his vice-presidency, just like the classified documents relating to Afghanistan that were recovered from his garage.

“This record was important to him for a number of reasons, including to defend his record and to buttress his legacy in the world as a leader,” wrote Mr. Hur.

Republicans questioned the decision of Mr. Hur not to charge Mr. Biden for mishandling classified materials.

In his report Mr. Hur stated that jurors will view the president as an “old man with a bad memory.”

Mr. Hur informed lawmakers that even though Mr. Biden admitted to possessing classified documents on the 2017 audio recording in his defense, Mr. Biden could claim that he had forgotten about them.

Mr. Hur stated that it would be hard to convince a juror that he knew it was illegal for him to continue keeping the documents.

The Democrats wanted to get Mr. Hur on record publicly absolving Biden of all wrongdoing.

Mr. Hur, however, stood by the conclusions of his report.

Mr. Hur responded to a Washington Democrat, Pramila Jayapal’s question by saying, “I didn’t exonerate him and that word was not in my report.”

Later, White House spokesperson Ian Sams informed reporters that the Hur Report provided no evidence of wrongdoing.

The conclusion is that there was no case. Case closed. He said, “It’s time to go on.”

In 2017, Mr. Biden ended his tenure as Vice President and published his second book, “Promise Me, Dad.”

He met Mark Zwonitzer as vice president. Mark helped Biden write his first autobiography, “Promises to Keep,” in 2007.

Mr. Hur inferred from his report that Biden would need his notebooks to complete the book project. Mr. Hur stated that Mr. Biden was aware of the fact that the notebooks contained classified material, and he had taken them out of White House and given the materials to Mr. Zwonitzer who didn’t have a clearance.

Mr. Hur’s investigators spoke to 150 people, many of whom were members of Mr. Biden’s staff. On Oct. 8 and 9, they questioned Mr. Biden about the classified materials stored in his Delaware home as well as his Washington office. The material was discovered in a damaged cardboard box in Biden’s garage. The material was dated back to the 1980s during his tenure as a U.S. Senator, meaning he must have stolen the documents from the Capitol’s secure room.

The Washington Times reviewed a transcript of the interview in which Mr. Biden repeatedly told Mr. Hur that he couldn’t recall whether or not he owned the documents, their purpose, or how they got to his Delaware home and Washington office.

He told Mr. Hur that he couldn’t remember how he came to have classified material on the Obama administration’s 2009 Afghanistan troop surge in his possession, which investigators had found.

When Mr. Hur’s staff asked Mr. Biden if he had written in a notebook containing classified information about Afghanistan, Mr. Biden wasn’t certain if he did so as vice president.

The date in the notebook was April 20th, 2009, which is about four months after President Obama and he took office.

In an interview, Mr. Biden asks: “Was i still vice president?” “I was, wasn’t I? Yeah.”

In the interview, Mr. Biden answers with “I can’t remember”, “I’m not sure” and “I’m not sure” about how or why he obtained classified information or if he still has it.

Memory lapses became so common that they were a major factor in Mr. Hur’s decision to not charge the President, even though Mr. Biden’s mishandling the documents “presented serious risks to the national security”.

The hearing reinforced the argument that Mr. Biden’s political rival, former President Donald Trump is the victim a double standard of justice in his prosecution over mishandling classified information. Special counsel Jack Smith has charged the former president who is expected to be the Republican candidate in November with 40 criminal charges for stealing classified documents from White House and storing at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach in Florida.

Matt Gaetz (Republican, Florida) questioned Mr. Hur’s decision not to charge Mr. Zwonitzer.

After learning that Mr. Hur was appointed to investigate classified documents, the author deleted the audio recordings of his conversations with Mr. Biden he had made for the book.

Mr. Hur said that he spared Zwonitzer, because the author retained the transcriptions of the audio recording that contained incriminating evidence.

Wasn’t. Wasn’t. Biden and Trump were treated equally. “They weren’t.” Mr. Gaetz stated. “And this is the double-standard that I think many Americans are worried about.”