Kamala Harris angrily attacks special counsel who spotlighted Biden memory lapses as 'politically motivated'

Vice President Kamala Harris sharply attacked Special Counsel Robert Hur's report on President Biden's handling of classified documents, Friday, as "politically motivated" and "gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate."

A reporter asked Harris in Washington if she thought Hur's report that recounted several memory lapses by the president was fair. Harris blasted Hur as being "wrong on the facts" and thought he should have shown greater integrity.

"I'm glad you asked," Harris said. "Listen, I have been privileged and proud to serve as vice president of the United States with Joe Biden as president of the United States. And what I saw [in] that report last night, I believe, as a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor [were] gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate."

Harris' voice grew stronger as she spoke, almost shaking at one point.

Vice President Kamala Harris with President Biden, left, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

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"October 7th, Israel experienced a horrific attack, and I will tell you, we got the calls, the president and myself, in the hours after that occurred," she added. "It was an intense moment for the Commander in Chief of the United States of America, and I was in almost every meeting with the president in the hours and days that followed. Countless hours with the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the heads of our intelligence community, and the president was in front of and on top of it all.

"So the way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous. And so I will say that when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw."

Harris received applause after concluding her remarks and left the room.

In his report made public  on Thursday, Hur described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," and said he would bring no criminal charges against the president after a months-long investigation into his improper retention of classified documents related to national security. 

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Joe Biden and Robert Hur. (Reuters / Getty)

Hur has been investigating Biden’s improper retention of classified records since last year. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security and foreign policy which Hur said implicated "sensitive intelligence sources and methods." 

In his report, Hur's assessment of Biden and recounting of his memory lapses constituted part of his conclusion about why Biden shouldn't be charged. They included examples of him forgetting when he was vice president, when his son Beau died and details of a debate over the war in Afghanistan.

"Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt," the report states. "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."

Biden was defiant after the report came out, giving a rare primetime address Thursday night and holding a press conference where he declared his memory was "fine" and said questions about Beau's death were nobody's "damn business."

Hur, who was appointed last year by Attorney General Merrick Garland as special counsel to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents, oversaw indictments of multiple top Baltimore officials for public corruption and fraud during his time as a United States Attorney. 

Hur was nominated by President Trump to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland in November 2017, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in March 2018. 

Fox News' Jessica Chasmar and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.