“Biden not only kept information he was not supposed to keep but he shared it with people who were not allowed to see it. He shared that information with his ghostwriter. Special counsel Hur said President Biden had ‘strong motivations’ to do so and to ignore the rules of properly handling the classified information in his notebooks. In fact, he had 8 million reasons to ignore the rules. Joe Biden shared some of the classified materials he kept with his ghostwriter who was writing a book for which Joe Biden received an 8 million dollar advance. So we have motive, 8 million dollar motive, and we have the elements of a crime.”
— House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), opening statement at a hearing, May 16
At a hearing in which Republicans voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, Jordan asserted that the special counsel who investigated President Biden said he had a financial motive to improperly disclose classified information — a book deal with Flatiron Books in April 2017 that supposedly earned him $8 million. (That figure was an advance for three books, including one by Jill Biden.)
Robert K. Hur investigated Biden’s retention of classified documents when he was out of office, and issued a 388-page report on Feb. 8. The Justice Department released a transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur but has refused to provide the audio recording, which is the reason for the contempt vote.
Much of the report is devoted to examining whether prosecutors could make a case against the president that would result in a conviction. Despite the evidence gathered by prosecutors, the report repeatedly concludes that it would be tough to win a case — often because Biden had reasonable defenses, the facts were murky or Biden had cooperated fully with the investigation.
For the purpose of this fact check, we plan to examine what Hur says about Biden’s motivation for retaining private notebooks. Jordan — as well as other Republican lawmakers at the hearing — say that Biden was motivated by money. For instance, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said “he knowingly took all this classified material out and then basically sold it to a ghostwriter to make 8 million bucks.”
The aim seems to be to suggest that Biden is motivated by greed. But despite the GOP claims, Hur’s report does not say the book advance was a factor in Biden’s retaining the documents.
The Facts
At issue are notebooks that Biden kept on key meetings when he was vice president. The report says “the evidence shows convincingly” that Biden knew the notebooks contained classified information.
But the report says that Biden could credibly claim he thought his notebooks were his personal property and that he was allowed to take them home after his vice presidency. For instance, the report notes the Justice Department took no action after it was discovered that former president Ronald Reagan had kept eight years’ worth of handwritten diaries that contained classified information. In his interview with Hur, Biden brought up the Reagan example.
While he was still vice president, Biden began to work with a ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, on a book, “Promise Me, Dad,” which covers a 14-month period of his vice presidency during which his older son, Beau, died. This was one of the books in the three-book deal with Flatiron. “From approximately April 2016 through February 2017, Mr. Biden worked with Zwonitzer to outline the book and draft a proposal to submit to publishers,” the report says.
Zwonitzer began interviewing Biden for the book in the spring of 2016 and then the manuscript was finalized in the summer of 2017, after Biden was no longer vice president.
The report says there is evidence that Biden, on three occasions, may have disclosed classified information to Zwonitzer, who did not have clearance. But, the report says, “we do not believe the evidence supports charges of willful disclosure beyond a reasonable doubt.” That’s because Biden, while speaking to Zwonitzer, indicated uncertainty about whether the passages in his notebook that he was reading were classified. As a result, “we conclude that the evidence does not establish that Mr. Biden willfully disclosed national defense information to Zwonitzer.”
Jordan quotes Hur as saying Biden had “strong motivations” to keep the notebooks — which Jordan says is the book advance. But here’s how Hur refers to the strong motivations.
“He had strong motivations to do so and to ignore the rules for properly handling the classified information in his notebooks. He consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part. We do not, however, believe this evidence would meet the government’s burden at trial — particularly the requirement to prove that Mr. Biden intended to do something the law forbids. Consistent with statements Mr. Biden made during our interview of him and arguments made by the White House Counsel and Mr. Biden’s personal counsel, we expect Mr. Biden defense at trial would be that he thought his notebooks were his personal property and he was allowed to take them home, even if they contained classified information.”
In another section referencing “strong motivations,” Hur mentions Biden wanting to write a book but makes no mention of the advance:
“Mr. Biden had strong motivations to ignore the proper procedures for safeguarding the classified information in his notebooks. He decided months before leaving office to write a book and began meeting with his ghostwriter while still vice president. After his vice presidency, the notebooks continued to be an invaluable resource that he consulted liberally. During hours of recorded interviews in which he read aloud from his notebooks in his private home, Mr. Biden provided raw material to his ghostwriter detailing meetings and events that would be of interest to prospective readers and buyers of his book. He also likely viewed the notebooks, like the marked classified documents related to Afghanistan recovered from his garage, as an irreplaceable contemporaneous record of some of the most important moments of his vice presidency. This record was valuable to him for many reasons, including to help defend his record and buttress his legacy as a world leader.”
The book advance is only mentioned once in the report, in a different context, concerning documents found in Biden’s garage: “Inside the Mark Z folder was the final book proposal for ‘Promise Me, Dad.’ Mr. Biden used this proposal to shop his book to potential publishers, and this bidding process resulted in a book contract netting Mr. Biden an advance of $8 million.”
When Hur testified before the Judiciary Committee in March, Jordan tried to get him to agree that Biden had been motivated by “pride and money.” Hur did not answer “yes.” But it’s a matter of interpretation as to whether Hur deflected the question by simply confirming the language that Jordan quoted from the report, or that he agreed with Jordan.
- Jordan: “$8 million. Joe Biden had 8 million reasons to break the rules. He took classified information and shared it with the guy who was writing the book. … He knew the rules but he broke them for $8 million in a book advance. But you know what? It wasn’t just the money. … This page 231, very next page … ‘Joe Biden viewed his notebooks as an irreplaceable contemporaneous record of the most important moments of his vice presidency.’ He had written this all down — for the book, for the $8 million. And the next thing you say in your report is ‘such a record would buttress his legacy as a world leader.’ You know what this is? It wasn’t just the money, it wasn’t just $8 million. It was also his ego. Pride and money is why he knowingly violated the rules. The oldest motives in the book, pride and money. You agree with that, Mr. Hur? You wrote it in your report.”
- Hur: “That language, and it does appear in the report, and we did identify evidence supporting those assessments.”
Russell Dye, Jordan’s spokesman, appeared mystified by our query. “That is Mr. Jordan’s interpretation and the facts and common sense support it,” he said. “You don’t read classified materials to a ghostwriter unless it’s for a book. Joe Biden wrote the book for money. Joe Biden received $8,000,000 for the book. Mr. Jordan’s interpretation is completely reasonable.”
The Pinocchio Test
To some extent, this is a matter of opinion. But Jordan incorrectly suggests that the dots he has connected — Biden gave up classified information in exchange for a book advance — are in the report. There’s nothing to suggest that Biden received this money because the book contained information derived from his notebooks, or that Biden was motivated to share classified information to win a book deal. The report notes that Biden thought these materials were his own personal property that he was not required to leave with the National Archives — and that he was generally (though not always) careful when speaking to his ghostwriter about the material in his notebooks.
One also can presume any former vice president would get a sizable book advance. (Mike Pence received $1.4 million.) Moreover, it was a three-book deal, so it’s inaccurate to suggest all $8 million was for this particular book.
Yet, given this is opinion, we will leave this unrated and let readers come to their own conclusion.
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