Trump has his best day of 2024

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

(CNN) — Donald Trump had his best day of 2024 so far…

► The former president was handed a political gift. An independent special counsel poured kerosene on concerns about Joe Biden’s age with pointed language about the president’s poor memory after concluding Biden had willfully mishandled classified documents – and that his failing memory makes him impossible to convict. Biden was on defense at a hastily called White House news conference. “My memory is fine,” Biden said.

► He is on a glide path to the Republican nomination. Trump romped in the Nevada and US Virgin Island caucuses Thursday night, continuing his unbeaten streak and making Nikki Haley’s campaign feel futile.

► He appears poised for a win at the Supreme Court. Justices expressed deep skepticism that Colorado could declare him an insurrectionist and bar him from their election ballots.

It’s a one-two-three combo that should have Trump feeling solid about his political future, at least for a moment.

Feeding the frenzy about Biden’s age

In concluding Biden should not be prosecuted, Special Counsel Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed US Attorney in Maryland, offered a political indictment of the president’s fitness. Hur described the leader of the free world as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” that would make him impossible to prosecute.

The odd assessment in a justice department document created an instant feeding frenzy among Biden’s opponents and will last much longer in the public consciousness than any of the other news.

“Is this a joke?” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis wrote on social media, reposting quotes from Hur’s report.

“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” House Republican leaders said in a quickly released joint statement, seizing on the special counsel’s description of Biden in the report.

In a statement, Biden pointed out his cooperation with the special counsel probe and said he was pleased with the outcome, arguing the matter is now closed.

Hardly. Questions about his age already existed and are now sure to grow, especially with Republicans primed to pounce on any misstep or verbal mistake, such as when he mixed up dead European leaders this week.

In stern comments acknowledging the outcry, Biden reprimanded Hur for questioning his memory of his son.

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, ‘Wasn’t any of their damn business.’”

He pulled at a rosary of Beau’s that he wears and added, “I don’t need anyone to remind me of when he passed away.”

Biden’s memory during interview with investigators

Hur said Biden could not remember key details during his meeting with authorities and forgot key dates, including the year his son Beau died and the years when he was vice president.

The White House immediately disputed the accounts.

“The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events,” White House counsel Richard Sauber and Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer said in a five-page letter to Hur.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, tried to deflect concerns about Biden’s age, calling them “ridiculous cheap shots,” and noted Trump has also had some gaffes caught on tape in recent weeks.

“I just spent an hour with president Biden and the entire Democratic caucus, where he regaled and entertained everyone,” Raskin told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday night after attending a retreat for House Democrats in Virginia.

Other elements for Trump to exploit

Trump has sought to create a false equivalence between his own standoff with the government over classified material – which led to one of his federal indictments – and what was found in Biden’s Delaware garage and den. Pictures in the report of boxes in Biden’s garage, next to his Corvette, will almost certainly be placed by Trump supporters alongside the infamous pictures of Trump’s boxes in an unused Mar a Lago bathroom.

Trump will also point to the decision not to prosecute Biden as evidence of a double standard in the justice system, although the politically loaded language Hur used to describe Biden could be seen as evidence to prove there is no double standard. Hur was appointed as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who serves under Biden.

Biden vs. Trump on classified material

People may soon forget that the bottom line of the special counsel’s report should actually be unhelpful to Trump. After all, it concluded that Biden should not be prosecuted for his willful mishandling of classified documents, most of which appear to be handwritten notes by Biden in notebooks. Hur took pains to distinguish between Biden’s mishandled classified material and the case for which Trump is set to be prosecuted in federal court in Florida as soon as this summer.

• Biden notified the National Archives when classified material was found; Trump fought the National Archives for more than a year before the FBI raided Mar a Lago.
• Biden willingly handed the material over and cooperated with the probe; Trump is accused of a conspiracy with his employees to obstruct the search for missing classified documents.

The classified material described by Hur’s report concerned policy in Afghanistan when Biden was vice president and includes a handwritten memo in which he advised then-President Barack Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan. Obama ultimately ignored the advice. Biden’s decision as president to remove all US troops from Afghanistan – allowing the Taliban to retake control of that country in 2021 – is widely seen as a blemish on his foreign policy record.

The large amounts of classified data Trump kept were not described in any detailed way in the criminal indictment against Trump, but CNN has reported they included detailed military attack plans.

More good news for Trump

After wins Thursday in Nevada and the US Virgin Islands, Trump remains undefeated and in total command of the primary race.

Trump’s win in Nevada was never in doubt in a state where party leaders molded the delegate-awarding contest to benefit him. Trump’s chief rival, Haley, was not even an option for caucusgoers Thursday. The former South Carolina governor chose instead to take part in the state-run primary conducted earlier this week, where Trump was not on the ballot. Haley finished second to “none of these candidates,” an embarrassment that confirmed her fading relevance in the race.

The state’s Republican delegates will all go to Trump.

Haley has said she will stay in the race through Super Tuesday in early March, even after the embarrassment in Nevada and with polling showing her trailing badly in her home state of South Carolina, which holds the next Republican primary on February 24.

Good signs for Trump in this one Supreme Court case

While his victory in the Supreme Court after oral arguments Thursday is perhaps not as assured as his romp in the Nevada caucuses, Trump must be happy with how things look.

Even liberal justices were skeptical Thursday that Colorado should be able to, after a judge heard evidence last year, declare the former president an insurrectionist and disqualify him from the state’s ballot.

The question of whether Trump actually engaged in insurrection was barely mentioned at the arguments, a tell for many court watchers that the justices could sidestep Trump’s behavior on January 6, 2021, entirely in a decision that seems likely to affirm his eligibility to appear on presidential ballots.

Still, larger Trump-related questions loom for the Supreme Court, such as whether Trump enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution. His lawyers have until Monday to ask the Supreme Court to review a DC appeals court ruling last week that, no, Trump does not have super immunity and that he can be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s federal trial for election interference was to have begun the day before Super Tuesday, the most important day on the primary calendar, when voters in Colorado and other states could essentially seal the Republican nomination for Trump.

It will be a very bad day for Trump if, as some court watchers suspect, the court refuses to consider the issue and allows his trial in Washington, DC, to proceed. But if they do take up the issue, it might be another reason for Trump to celebrate.

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