Multiple liberal commentators took aim at Special Counsel Robert Hur for including a reference to Beau Biden, in his report and accused him of asking the president about his death, before reports emerged this week that Hur didn't bring him up in their interview.
Jennifer Palmieri, an MSNBC political analyst, accused Hur on Sunday of bringing up Beau Biden, who died in 2015, to rattle the president during the investigation into his handling of classified material.
"Why was the special counsel asking him about Beau’s death, right? There is no legitimate answer for why he would do that, and in an interview that happened in October, months and months and months after the special counsel began their work. Unless they were trying to trip him up, rattle him, gain oppo, right? I mean, I think it is just that, the fundamental question of, why would you ask him about Beau’s death, raises the question about the legitimacy of the entire line of questioning," Palmieri said.
In a press conference after Hur's report was released that included shots at Biden's memory, the president attacked Hur for bringing up his son's death, but it was the president who first brought up the death of Beau in his special counsel interview last year, Fox News confirmed.
NO CHARGES FOR BIDEN AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE INTO IMPROPER HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
Biden brought up Beau’s death, not Hur, during his October interview, according to two well-placed sources familiar with the probe. Yet Biden last week said that it wasn't anyone's "damn business" when "I was asked the question" about his son.
MSNBC host Al Sharpton also appeared to repeat the president's claim that it was Hur who asked about Beau's death. While speaking about the president's frequent gaffes on Feb. 9, he said Biden should "own" it.
"I would say, yes, I made gaffes… I made gaffes when I did the infrastructure bill. I made gaffes went I cut unemployment in half. I own it. Turn it around on them. And then I would go after Hur. Because why would Hur even ask him the date of his son’s death. What does that have to do with classified documents?" Sharpton said.
Palmieri, during the same segment, said it showed it was a "set-up from the start."
"What I’m saying is, I would have gone right after him. ‘Yes, I might have messed up my son’s death because I was so stunned this guy would ask me something that was so painful to me,’" Sharpton added.
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder also attacked Hur for "asking" the question about Beau's death.
"And if I’m under pressure, if I’m in the middle of, I think, two days of examination… I’m not saying that he did forget it. But if he did, that is something that is in some ways understandable. But the larger question is, why the hell are you asking that question? What does that have to do with the retention of classified documents? I’d like to think that at best, this prosecutor was extremely naive, a rube perhaps," he said.
"He’s a Republican appointee, and he’s thinking, I want to have a life beyond what I’m saying in connection with this investigation. And that might have shaded what he put in the report," Holder continued.
The revelations came after Biden lashed out last Thursday at Hur, who investigated his handling of classified documents, after the prosecutor in his final report noted that the president struggled to remember details such as when his son died.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, told MSNBC on Monday that invoking Beau's death was "beyond the pale."
First Lady Jill Biden criticized Hur in a campaign email to donors on Saturday, arguing that the Justice Department official only included the detail to score "political points." She said that the grief of losing a son is not measured "in years."
"We should give everyone grace, and I can’t imagine someone would try to use our son’s death to score political points," she wrote in the email.
"If you’ve experienced a loss like that, you know that you don’t measure it in years -- you measure it in grief," she added. "Believe me, like anyone who has lost a child, Beau and his death never leave him."
Fox News' David Spunt, Jake Gibson and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
