Accounts of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents have largely focused in on the glaring evidence of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. But while these revelations are indeed damning, and many conservatives have seen Hur’s larger effort as a whitewash, there’s another subtle yet clear warning that should not be missed: Hur’s acknowledgement of the growing threat of left-wing jury nullification.
Hur’s report, which was commissioned and released by Biden’s own Department of Justice to look into the boxes of classified documents found in Biden’s Delaware garage and in a closet at the Penn Biden Center, characterizes the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The report then goes on to detail several major details of Biden’s life which the president could not recall, including information like when his son, Beau, died, and when he was vice president.
These revelations indeed provide shocking new evidence of Biden’s dismal mental capacities. But while the report does not recommend any charges, it certainly does not clear Biden of crimes. Rather, Hur concludes that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”—including material containing “issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods”.
Why no charges then? Among other things, Hur states, Biden “is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”
Reasons for this could, of course, could include the political bias of Washington, D.C. jurors, the vast majority of whom would likely support Biden in the coming presidential election.
Hur is most likely correct in his assumption that a jury in Washington, D.C.—one of the bluest cities in the nation that Biden won by an astounding margin of 87 points in 2020—would acquit Biden no matter what.
In fact, the investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents marks at least the second time in recent years an important investigation into Democrat misconduct has hit a brick wall of Democrat bias in the court system.
Michael Sussman, who was charged with lying to the FBI about his representation of the Hillary Clinton campaign when presenting agents with fabricated information pertaining to the Russian collusion hoax, was acquitted by a jury despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt.
Following the verdict, the jury foreman claimed that Sussman shouldn’t have faced prosecution because “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”
Just months later, Igor Danchenko—another fixture of the Russia Hoax charged with lying to the FBI about information related to the now-debunked Steele Dossier—was similarly found not guilty in what appeared to be an open-and-shut legal case.
By all indications, these verdicts were the latest examples of the phenomenon known as “jury nullification,” which occurs when a jury votes to convict or acquit despite overwhelming evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion.
In recent years, it has become apparent that jury nullification makes it virtually impossible to hold a prominent Democrat accountable in a political case in Washington D.C.
As Special Counsel John Durham wrote in his report released in May 2023 detailing the origins of the Russiagate investigation, “juries can bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters, and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, separate and apart from the strength of the actual evidence and despite a court’s best efforts to empanel a fair and impartial jury.”
Hur’s refusal to recommend charges against Biden also evokes former FBI Director James Comey’s unwillingness in 2016 to bring charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server as Secretary of State, even despite her clear implication in criminal activity.
The virtual guarantee that Democrats will be acquitted in politically sensitive cases in Washington stands in sharp contrast to left-wing prosecutors’ legal warfare against former President Donald Trump, who is now facing up to 700 years in federal prison based on obviously politically motivated legal charges, and on February 16 was ordered to pay an absurd $355 million penalty in a New York civil case which legal experts have slammed as ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his Democrat allies can rest assured that politically sympathetic juries will let them off the hook entirely, no matter how egregious their violations of the law may be.
After all, avenues for potential criminal prosecution of Biden extend far beyond his mishandling of classified materials. Throughout his career, the Biden family has controlled more than 20 shell companies, with which it has raked in tens of millions of dollars.
As president, Biden has overseen a massive government-orchestrated censorship campaign, relentlessly attempted to jail his political opponents (from Trump to pro-life activist Mark Houck to parents voicing concerns about their children’s education), and deliberately launched a foreign invasion of America’s borders.
Nonetheless, Biden—and other likeminded political figures who engage in similar behavior—have no reason to fear, because they know that rank-and-file Democrat voters selected for juries would sanction their conduct and proudly refuse to deal them any legal consequences.
The repercussions of this dynamic could be lasting and severe. Under this pretext, Democrats can engage in wild abuses of power knowing that juries will dutifully vote to clear them of any wrongdoing.
This pattern of automatic Democrat acquittal poses an existential threat to the rule of law, equal justice, and the survival of American democracy itself.
For the time being, the task of holding Biden and other Democrats accountable for their flagrant violations of the law rests in the hands of congressional Republicans. Though conservative voters have reason to be hopeful—from the Biden impeachment inquiry to House Republicans’ recent impeachment of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—there remains a long way to go in restoring equal justice under the law. Every American should hope that Republicans will seize that opportunity.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
