There's an old lawyers' saying about never asking a question when grilling a witness if you don't already know the answer. The reason is that you don't want to end up accidentally highlighting something that could hurt your case. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) isn't a lawyer so perhaps she doesn't understand that principle. But her effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Hur failed exactly for that reason. 

Jayapal went after Hur, basically saying things that he hadn't said. I don't know whether she hadn't read the report and didn't understand the facts and/or she was just trying to be misleading. Jayapal claimed that the report resulted in a "complete exoneration" of Joe Biden. That wasn't what the report said at all, so probably not a good move to tell the guy behind the report what it supposedly says when it isn't true. But as she tried to get that in for the cameras, Hur's response was just great, "We did NOT exonerate him." 

SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR: We did NOT exonerate Biden pic.twitter.com/mLHW3rgdSe

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 12, 2024

She realized that she chose the wrong word and then tried to talk fast and interrupt him so he couldn't be heard, but he was heard anyway: they didn't exonerate Biden. This is classic Democratic tactics, but it didn't work on Hur. 

Democrats have been claiming that Biden was "exonerated" and he wasn't. Now Hur is saying it flat out so that just does in their spin. Saying you aren't going to prosecute him because he's an "elderly man with a poor memory" isn't the same thing as saying he didn't do anything. 

Hur chose -- for reasons that I disagree with -- not to prosecute. That is not the same thing. Indeed, on the very first page of the report it said that Biden "willfully retained" classified documents. There were classified documents all over the house, even in the garage next to the Corvette. He had documents from the time he was in the Senate which is something he still has not explained since he never should have been able to take those out of a SCIF. 

Indeed, Hur confirmed that again in his testimony, as George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley noted. 

Hur just confirmed again that President Biden "willfully retained" classified information. He notes that Biden referred to such material in a recorded message and actually read from some of the material to a third party...

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 12, 2024

Hur also noted that he read some of that alleged classified material to a third party. 

This was in direct contradiction to what Biden claimed. 

...That stands in direct contradiction of what President Biden claimed publicly before and after the interview. Hur is saying that he was deterred from bringing charges due to the higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." He had to consider the President's "overall mental…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 12, 2024

So Jayapal, by asking that question, managed to make it abundantly clear to the audience that the Democratic narrative was all bunk. 

READ MORE:

Schiff Goes After Special Counsel for Telling the Truth About Biden, Hur Just Shuts Him Down

Jonathan Turley Busts Biden's Excuses and Mocks the Media's Next Move

Hur's Opening Statement and First Glimpses of Biden's Unbelievable Excuses, Memory Losses