Regarding the Upcoming Robert Hur Congressional Testimony: Bring it on

I'm very much looking forward to this, as it will expose his true intentions

Remember Robert Hur? You’d be forgiven if you don’t. Even amid all of the recent sensitivity to potential cognitive impairment and dementia, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone that would accuse you of a less-than-optimally-functioning brain due to this lapse. It’s been about 300 news cycles since he popped up on the scene, after all.

Robert Hur is the Special Counsel that was assigned to investigate President Biden’s retention of classified documents. He released his report on the results of this investigation on Thursday, February 8, which many on the left considered a bit too detail-oriented in relation to what his mandate actually was. He made some comments about the President’s faulty memory which caused an uproar, both feigned and legitimate, that lasted for about two weeks among anyone paying attention to the news and media. The hot takes were unanimous in two camps: he either exposed Biden’s debilitating dementia, or he’s a partisan hack that took unnecessary political pot shots at the President.

Just after the release of this report, I wrote an article titled “The Hur Report’s Comments on Biden’s Age is not Saying What Everybody Thinks it is”. It pointed out that the exact wording of the most infamous statement in Hur’s report was being ignored, and thus the statement taken the wrong way by every analyst and pundit that issued an opinion. The subsequent discourse and shaping of public opinion about the matter was greatly distorted as a result. The three words that were ignored from the statement, by everyone except me apparently, really changes the perceived context of the statement.

I won’t go into all the details here; I encourage you to read my article. It was my 2nd most popular article, I got a lot of good feedback about it, and I still haven’t seen anyone posit anything similar to my analysis. But my basic conclusion was that the wording suggested a context that was not intended to be insulting to the President at all, and in fact could be more complimentary to him, if anything. The statement seems to suggest that President Biden is a worthy adversary that would not warrant prosecution, largely because of how he would—perhaps intentionally—seem to a jury, which is a consideration every prosecutor would need to make when deciding to prosecute or not. It was not intended as a blatant “political dig” on the President. It was just an analytical statement about prosecutorial discretion.

But here’s the thing: I could be wrong. And I would love to know if I was wrong. The only way to know for sure is to know the inner thoughts of Special Counsel Hur when he wrote the report. If only we could somehow know this…..

Well, much to my excitement, we may soon get to find out about Hur’s inner thoughts and intentions with his statements about Biden’s memory, or lack thereof. Of course, the Republicans pounced on the opportunity to keep this negative story in the news as long as possible and have scheduled a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Hur for this coming Tuesday, March 12.

This news was met with chagrin and anger among Biden supporters and liberals, many clamoring for Attorney General Garland to quash any attempt by Republicans to delve further into the mechanics behind the report. But if there’s one thing we should have learned about current House Republicans, it’s that they don’t have a lot of foresight, and make constant miscalculations in their attempts to seize political advantage. Democrats should welcome this testimony, and the opportunity for some tough questioning of Hur themselves.

Let’s examine the potential outcomes here. There are really only two feasible outcomes that will result from Hur’s testimony before Congress, both mutually exclusive of the other. Assuming Hur is 100% candid in his testimony, and I would expect a DOJ prosecutor to be more candid than I would just about anyone else, he’s going to expose his true nature. And it is a public hearing, so it will be revealed for everyone who’s interested; there won’t be any spin of “behind-closed-doors” testimony that is near impossible to verify. Either I am wrong, and he will be exposed as a partisan hack; or I’m right, and he’ll be exposed as an impartial prosecutor doing his job, albeit perhaps a bit more diligently than was necessary.

When Robert Mueller gave his public testimony in front of Congress in 2019 regarding the collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, it was widely considered a failure for Democrats. Their knight in shining armor was not quite the hero they were hoping for. Many questioned whether it was wise to have him testify at all. While widely respected as one of America’s finest modern public servants and citizens, Mueller didn’t make for good television. It was apparent he was a bit past his prime, and he didn’t help deliver the gut punches that Democrats hoped he would. He came off as a gentleman that just did his job and was simply answering questions about the job he did. There was no political advantage gained at a time when many thought major political advantage would be for the taking.

I find it hard to believe that this is going to go any better than that for Republicans. It is either going to be a complete dud, or it will be a live grenade that blows up in their faces. It simply is not likely they are going to find Hur willing, much less able, to deliver effective political attacks on President Biden. As a current DOJ prosecutor, Hur is going to want to maintain the appearance of impartial professionalism. If Republicans believe he is going to play psychologist for them and make definitive statements about Biden’s mental acuity, they are sorely mistaken. If they are not prepared for this, which I doubt they will be, they will be scrambling in full public view to figure out how to extract anything from him even slightly damaging to President Biden.

But let’s say Hur does play right into Republicans’ hands and personally raises questions Biden’s ability to be president. Then he completely exposes himself as a partisan hack, and nothing has been much more satisfying lately than seeing the pack of House Democrat lions attack the wounded and unsuspecting Republican hyenas. In this scenario Hur loses all credibility, Republicans’ credibility further erodes to dust, and we get sound byte after sound byte of Democrats humiliating Hur and Republicans for their egregious partisanship.

In addition, this scenario will be fertile ground to emphasize that even the most rabidly partisan right-wing prosecutor could not bring himself to prosecute the President. It will be verified that there is no “there there”, because we can be sure that if there were a “there there”, he would have ‘there’fore eagerly prosecuted him. It would be another opportunity to contrast Biden with the unhinged lawlessness of political opponent Donald Trump. In some ways I hope I was wrong in my analysis, because this scenario would be more fun to witness.

If I were giving Democrats advice, I would say have two sets of questions ready. One for if he’s coming off as partisan and one for if he’s coming off as impartial. If he’s impartial, they have a witness in their favor on their hands. If he’s partisan, they have a potentially hostile witness….and let the games begin.