https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/analysis-trump-2024-special-counsel-... Trump has his best day of 2024
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
6 minute read
Published 12:00 AM EST, Fri February 9, 2024
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.