Dershowitz says Hur report ‘a disaster,’ ‘unfair to both sides’

Former Trump attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz denounced the special counsel report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents as “a disaster” and “unfair to both sides” on Monday.

Special counsel Robert Hur’s report cleared Biden of wrongdoing but also included digs at his age and cognitive health. Hur said Biden came off as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” in interviews for the investigation, a characterization Biden has aggressively pushed back against.

“The report itself is a disaster in both respects. It was unfair to both sides,” Dershowitz, who represented former President Trump in his first impeachment trial, said in a Fox News interview Monday.

He argued that Hur should have found Biden criminally liable for holding classified documents, comparing the situation to the criminal case faced by Trump. But Dershowitz also defended Biden over the attacks on his memory.

“I think this report is going to really cause us to think hard about the role of special counsel. He was wrong in everything he possibly could have done,” he said. 

“He was wrong about not charging Biden. Biden should have been charged, or Trump should have had his case dismissed, and he was wrong for going into a kind of medical diagnosis that will have a political impact on the case,” he continued.

Other legal observers have suggested the Biden and Trump classified documents cases are quite different, in part because of Trump’s refusal to cooperate in giving back documents he took to his residence in Florida.

Hur also made the point in his report.

“Several material distinctions between Mr. Trump’s case and Mr. Biden’s are clear. Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts,” he wrote.

“Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.” 

Overall, the former Harvard law professor gave Hur a D- grade “with great inflation” for the report.

Hur is a former U.S. attorney for Maryland appointed by President Trump in 2018. He resigned when Biden came into office, which is standard for federal prosecutors. Biden attorney Bob Bauer suggested that the digs at Biden were intended to shore up Hur’s own job prospects in a future Trump administration.