EFE Washington

Washington

Updated Thursday, February 8, 2024-22:24

Special prosecutor

Robert Hur

concluded that US President

Joe Biden

intentionally withheld classified documents from his time as vice president, but decided not to press charges against the president.

"Our investigation found evidence that President Biden intentionally withheld and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," Hur said in a report published this Thursday.

However, the prosecutor concluded that there is insufficient justification to file charges against the president.

Prosecuting Biden, Hur noted, would be "unjustified based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors" and explained that the evidence "does not establish the guilt" of the president "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Hur's team said prosecuting Biden would be "unjustified based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors" set out in the

Justice Department's prosecution policies.

Biden has been the subject of investigation since classified documents from the time he was

Barack Obama

's vice president (2009-2017) were found a year ago at his Delaware home and in a private office.

In the document, the prosecutor explains that Biden showed a "significantly limited memory" during his interrogations in 2023.

He even reports that the president did not remember the dates on which he held the vice presidency and had difficulty remembering the date of his son

Beau

's death in 2015.

In response to the publication of the report, Biden released a statement in which he expressed satisfaction at not having been charged, but made no mention of the prosecutor's allusions to his memory.

"I am glad to see that they have reached the conclusion that I always believed they would: that no charges would be filed in this case and that the matter is now closed," the president said in the statement.

Biden also defended that he "collaborated fully (with prosecutors), did not put obstacles in place and did not seek delays" in the investigation.

The documents were found by Biden's lawyers in November and December 2022, and immediately delivered to the

National Archives,

the organization that must safeguard them, after which the Department of Justice opened an investigation.

Former President

Donald Trump

(2017-2021), Republican candidate for next November's elections, was also investigated for retaining official documents in his Florida mansion and was charged with 40 charges since he refused to hand them over for months.

According to information that has been made public, both investigations are very different: the number of documents in question in the Biden investigation is around 20, while Trump allegedly illegally withheld 300 documents, which had to be recovered by an FBI raid

.