CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig noted Tuesday that Special Counsel Robert Hur did find "some evidence of criminality" during his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents."
Honig also admitted that Hur’s findings – which the special counsel testified about at the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday – show Biden and his team "did mislead the public" when claiming that he unintentionally mishandled classified documents.
While Democrats on the committee tried to discredit the special counsel's report, the former federal prosecutor told anchor Anderson Cooper Hur ran "an extensive and really impressive investigation."
CNN LEGAL ANALYST CLASHES WITH WHITE HOUSE OVER HUR REPORT: 'DEFENSIVE BLUSTER'
"I think his fact-finding left very little uncovered, and I think his analysis was sound and fair," Honig added. Hur’s report alleged that Biden mishandled classified documents, though he declined to recommend charges, in part due to Biden’s "poor memory" mitigating his culpability.
Despite claims from Democratic Party members insisting Hur’s report "exonerated" Biden, Hur himself told committee members on Tuesday he "did not exonerate" the president.
Honig supported this notion, telling Cooper that Hur "did find some evidence of criminality" on Biden’s part.
He explained, "He did find evidence – pretty clear-cut evidence – that Joe Biden retained classified documents, knew he retained them as evidence on that tape, and did not immediately turn them back over."
Honig then pointed out that Biden "did mislead" the American people when telling them for months that he unintentionally kept the documents.
"The other thing that I think is important to note is that Joe Biden did mislead the public, as did other members of Joe Biden’s team," he said, adding, "because for the past year or so, the talking point – and we’ve seen this repeated many times – has been it was entirely unintentional by Joe Biden – he had no idea he had any of these documents. ‘Things get moved around. Whoops, what are you going to do.’"
Honig clarified that some of the documents Biden kept unintentionally, though it was clear that he kept others on purpose.
He said, "It turns out that is somewhat fair when it comes to some of the documents, but not others. He absolutely knew he had these documents."
Honig said he believed that Hur made the right call in not indicting Biden, though, "I do think the decision not to charge him was a close one, but I think it was sound."
