Seven people, including three children, were killed in a Russian drone attack on a gas station in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday, regional authorities said.

The victims included two children aged seven and four, as well as a six-month-old child, Kharkiv region Governor Oleg Synegubov said on the messaging app Telegram. 

An Iranian-made ‘Shahed’ drone hit civilian infrastructure in the Nemyshlyan district of the city, causing a massive fire that burned down 15 private houses. Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second-largest city and is located in the northeast of the country.

‘Unfortunately, the death toll from the occupiers’ attacks on Kharkiv have risen to seven,’ Synegubov wrote. ‘The occupiers struck Kharkiv with ‘Shahed’ kamikaze drones.’ 

Synegubov said that the bodies of five people, including the three children, were found in a private house. The adults were the children’s parents, Syniehubov said.

Two more people – a couple aged 66 and 65 died at another facility, according to reports. ‘More than fifty people were saved!’ he wrote. 

The houses caught fire after three drones hit a petrol station in the Nemyshlianskyi district, according to the local prosecutor’s office in Kharkiv.

Video from the scene shows heavy flames ripping through buildings. 

Kharkiv regional prosecutor Oleksandr Filachkov said three drones hit Kharkiv’s Nemyshlyanskyi district.

‘As a result, a building for critical infrastructure was destroyed. There was a large amount of fuel, which is why the impacts of the fire were so terrible,’ Filachkov said in a video posted online.

The Ukrainian air force said air defense systems destroyed 23 out of 31 drones launched by Russia overnight. The drones primarily targeted the northeastern Kharkiv region and the southern province of Odesa, the statement said, according to the Associated Press.

Firefighters and rescuers worked through the night to cope with the consequences of the strike, extinguish fires and clear through the debris, officials said.

Russia has previously said that it does not deliberately target civilian sites.

The attacks came as the Russian invasion and ongoing conflict approached its second anniversary.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

A United Nations expert on torture is calling on the U.K. government to halt the possible extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S., citing concerns that he would be at risk of treatment amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said in a press release that Assange ‘suffers from a long-standing and recurrent depressive disorder’ and that he ‘is assessed as being at risk of committing suicide.’

The hearing for Assange’s possible final legal appeal challenging his extradition to the U.S. to face charges for publishing classified U.S. military documents will be held at the High Court in London on Feb. 20 and 21. If he is extradited to the U.S. after exhausting all his legal appeals, Assange would face trial in Alexandria, Virginia, and could be sentenced to up to 175 years in an American maximum-security prison.

‘If extradited, he could be detained in prolonged isolation while awaiting trial, or as an inmate. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison,’ Edwards said.

Assange, 52, is facing 17 charges for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the Espionage Act, and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

The charges were brought by the Trump administration’s Justice Department over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of cables leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning detailing war crimes committed by the U.S. government in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The materials also exposed instances of the CIA engaging in torture and rendition.

WikiLeaks’ ‘Collateral Murder’ video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists, was also published 14 years ago.

‘The risk of being placed in prolonged solitary confinement, despite his precarious mental health status, and to receive a potentially disproportionate sentence raises questions as to whether Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States would be compatible with the United Kingdom’s international human rights obligations, particularly under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as respective articles 3 of the U.N. Convention against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights,’ Edwards said.

‘Diplomatic assurances of humane treatment provided by the Government of the United States are not a sufficient guarantee to protect Mr. Assange against such risk,’ Edwards said. ‘They are not legally binding, are limited in their scope, and the person the assurances aim to protect may have no recourse if they are violated.’

Assange, an Australian journalist and publisher, has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, for breaching bail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped.

Last month, a group of Australian lawmakers wrote a letter to U.K. Home Secretary James Cleverly demanding Assange’s U.S. extradition be halted over concerns about his safety and well-being. The letter asked the U.K. government to make an independent assessment of Assange’s risk of persecution.

A cross-party delegation of Australian lawmakers also visited Washington, D.C., last year and met with U.S. officials, members of Congress and civil rights groups to demand the charges against Assange be dropped. Multiple bipartisan efforts were also made last year by U.S. lawmakers who demanded Assange’s release.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also repeatedly called on the U.S. in the last year to end the prosecution of Assange.

No publisher had been charged under the Espionage Act until Assange, and many press freedom groups have said his prosecution sets a dangerous precedent intended to criminalize journalism. U.S. prosecutors and critics of Assange have argued WikiLeaks’ publication of classified material put the lives of U.S. allies at risk, but there is no evidence that anyone was put in danger as a result of the documents being published.

The editors and publishers of the U.S. and European outlets that worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak — The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País  — wrote an open letter in 2022 calling for the U.S. to drop the charges against Assange.

The Obama administration elected not to indict Assange in 2013 over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of the classified cables because it would have had to also indict journalists from major news outlets who published the same materials. Former President Obama also commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years in January 2017, and Manning, who had been imprisoned since 2010, was released later that year.

But the Justice Department under former President Trump later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.

‘I call on the Government of the United Kingdom to carefully review Mr. Assange’s extradition order with a view to ensuring full compliance with the absolute and non-derogable prohibition of refoulement to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and to take all the necessary measures to safeguard Mr. Assange’s physical and mental health,’ Edwards said.

Assange’s lawyer in the U.K., Jennifer Robinson, has previously said she fears he ‘would not survive if extradited to the U.S.’

Under the Trump administration, the CIA allegedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as ‘Vault 7,’ which were leaked to Wikileaks, Yahoo reported in 2021. The agency said the leak represented ‘the largest data loss in CIA history.’

The CIA was accused of having discussions ‘at the highest levels’ of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London and allegedly followed orders from then-CIA director Mike Pompeo to draw up kill ‘sketches’ and ‘options.’ The agency also had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the Yahoo report.

WikiLeaks also published internal communications in 2016 between the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign that revealed the DNC’s attempts to boost Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary.

Three years into Joe Biden’s presidency, reporters who cover the administration know what to expect when first lady Jill Biden appears: nothing.

The president, 81, has held the fewest press conferences or formal interviews of any modern commander-in-chief — leaving Biden’s jaunts across the White House South Lawn to and from his Marine One helicopter as the best chance for the press corps to get some face time.

When Biden is alone, he is far easier to bait with shouted questions, sometimes shuffling over around midnight for a give-and-take — despite the unflattering overhead TV lights forcing him to hold up his hand to shield his eyes from the glare.

However, the presence of Jill, 72, on such trips is a dead giveaway that there will be no questions, with the first lady making sure to hold her husband’s hand the entire way across the lawn.

Jill Biden’s role in shielding her husband from members of the media has come under new scrutiny after special counsel Robert Hur described the president in a report released Thursday as an ‘elderly man with a poor memory.’

Biden has only held three solo White House press conferences since taking office in January 2021. At the most recent, in November 2022, Jill arrived at the last minute and was seated at the very front of the State Dining Room by a beefy aide — who positioned her so that journalists could not see whether the first lady was urging her husband at any point to make a hasty retreat.

Such precautions may have been needed after Biden’s second White House presser in January 2022, a marathon affair in which the president droned on for nearly two hours and made several factual errors and noteworthy gaffes.

At that presser, Biden suggested a ‘minor incursion’ by Russia into Ukraine would prompt a minimal US response, leaving officials in Kyiv aghast and suggesting the president had given Vladimir Putin a ‘green light’ to invade — which he did weeks later.

‘Why didn’t anyone stop that?’ Jill Biden fumed to aides, demanding an explanation for her husband being left to wilt before the world, according to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers, reported Friday by Axios.

‘Everyone stayed silent, looking at one another, and then at her, and back to one another,’ Rogers writes. ‘That included the most powerful man in the world.

‘Her husband essentially played along, not offering an answer, even though aides had slipped him a card suggesting he end the press conference,’ the book adds.

The first lady has also taken on the role of stage manager for her husband, leading Joe offstage by the hand at an event last month to commemorate the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot after repeated instances of the president hesitating or wandering in the wrong direction after making remarks.

Jill isn’t alone: White House staff have also gone to extensive lengths to prevent the president from potentially embarrassing interactions.

At that same January 2022 press conference that caused the first lady so much anguish, then-press secretary Jen Psaki — clad in a distinctive pink blazer — stood up after roughly an hour in an apparent attempt to bring the proceedings to a close.

Psaki sat back down as Biden continued to take questions, only to stand up again about 20 minutes later and walk to a door about 50 feet away from the press seating area in another apparent attempt to end the questioning, which continued for approximately 40 more minutes.

But the most notorious staff intervention took place at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April 2022, when then-director of message planning Meghan Hays, dressed in an Easter bunny costume, barged in to block Biden from answering an Afghan journalist’s question and guided him away from the rope line.

The White House press office has also played its part, introducing a Byzantine prescreening process to select which reporters are allowed to attend large indoor events that were open to all under past administrations — leading to muttering that those most aligned with the administration were most likely to be extended invitations. 

Prescreening was eased following a protest by members of the press corps in the summer of 2022, but returned ahead of Biden’s last-minute response to Hur’s report Thursday night. Digital RSVP forms only went out a few minutes before the hastily scheduled event in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room and some reporters on the executive mansion’s campus were denied access to the relatively small venue.

Despite all the precautions, Biden’s penchant for saying the wrong thing has never been hidden for long.

At that November 2022 White House press conference, for example, Biden said he would take 10 reporters’ questions from a list of pre-approved names, but left after only calling on nine — following a brutal gaffe in which he said Russian troops were preparing to pull out of the Iraqi city of Fallujah when he meant to say the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Those slips have increased in recent weeks, with Biden mixing up the names of current foreign leaders with their deceased predecessors. On Sunday, he told a Las Vegas audience that he had recently spoken with the late French President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996. In Manhattan on Wednesday, Biden recalled to donors that he discussed the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who last held office in 1998 and died in 2017.

On Thursday night, moments after insisting ‘I know what the hell I’m doing’ in response to the Hur report, Biden misidentified Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the ‘president of Mexico.’

The president has held no press conferences of any size since the APEC summit in November, where he appeared confused while standing side by side with other world leaders and mispronounced the name of the venue.

That same month, his re-election campaign launched operation ‘Bubble Wrap,’ which insiders told the New York Times was aimed at protecting the president from his unflattering trips and stumbles — whether on stage or while boarding Air Force One.

The White House on Friday attempted to discredit observations by special counsel Robert Hur that have renewed questions about President Biden’s mental acuity.

Spokesman for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams said the report cleared Biden of any wrongdoing related to his handling of classified documents, but offered sharp criticism of Hur’s description of the president as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

‘Unfortunately, the gratuitous remarks that the former attorney general talked about have naturally caught headlines in all of your attention,’ Sams told reporters at the daily White House press briefing. ‘They’re wrong and they’re inaccurate.’ 

Hur had investigated Biden’s improper retention of classified records since last year and released a report detailing his findings on Thursday. 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.’ 

However, the special counsel declined to bring charges against Biden. Hur, throughout the more than 300-page report, said ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him’ of a serious felony ‘that requires a mental state of willfulness,’ and said he would be ‘well into his eighties.’ 

Sams called the findings of no criminal wrongdoing by Biden accurate while hitting Hur’s observations of Biden’s mental state as ‘gratuitous and inappropriate.’ He pointed to statements by former Attorney General Eric Holder and other ex-DOJ officials who have criticized Hur’s commentary on Biden as inconsistent with DOJ traditions and political. 

‘The report lays out example after example of how the president did not willfully take classified documents. The report lays out how the president did not share classified documents with anyone. The report lays out how the president did not knowingly share classified information with anyone,’ Sams told reporters. ‘On page two, which I know you all read, the report argues that the president willfully retained materials but buried way later on page 215, the report says, and I quote, there is in fact, ‘a shortage of evidence on these points.’’ 

‘Put simply, this case is closed because the facts and the evidence don’t support the theories here. The gratuitous comments that respected experts are saying is out of line are inappropriate, and they shouldn’t distract from the fact that this case is closed and the facts and evidence show that they reached the right conclusion,’ he said. 

Biden spoke about the report in a brief address to the nation from the White House Thursday night, where he angrily confronted reporters’ questions about his age.

‘I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing,’ Biden said. ‘I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.’

‘My memory is fine,’ Biden added. 

The president was particularly incensed at Hur’s suggestion that he did not remember when his son Beau died during an interview. 

‘How dare he raise that?’ Biden said. ‘Frankly, when I was asked a question, I thought to myself, what’s that any of your damn business?’

‘Let me tell you something…I swear, since the day he died, every single day…I wear the rosary he got from Our Lady —’ Biden stopped, seemingly forgetting where the rosary was from.

Later in his remarks to the press, Biden referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the ‘president of Mexico.’

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

President Biden’s ghostwriter will not face charges despite deleting evidence of the sharing of classified material during the investigation.

Mark Zwonitzer — who collaborated with Biden on his memoir ‘Promise Me, Dad’ — erased audio files in his possession that contained ‘significant evidentiary value,’ according to a report published by Special Counsel Robert Hur. 

Zwonitzer admitted to the FBI that he ‘was aware that there was an investigation’ when he deleted the evidence. 

Hur began investigating Biden’s improper retention of classified records 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.’ 

‘When asked whether he deleted the recordings to try and prevent investigators from obtaining them, Zwonitzer said that he did not,’ the report states.

It added, ‘Our investigation […] did not uncover any evidence that Zwonitzer had been in contact with anyone about his decision to delete the recordings.’

Hur will not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling classified documents, despite finding ‘evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.’

The materials included ‘marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.’ 

Hur said FBI agents recovered the materials from ‘the garages, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.’ 

The special counsel described Biden as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall, Brooke Singman, David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

An unidentified Biden official compared Special Counsel Robert Hur’s decision not to recommend criminal charges against the president to a similar decision made during investigations into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Hur did not recommend charges against President Biden after a monthslong investigation into the president’s alleged improper retention of classified records — despite finding ‘evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.’

‘It felt like a Comey moment for me,’ the Biden official reportedly told Politico.

The official was comparing the Biden report to a similar document filed in 2016 by then-FBI Director James Comey.

Comey, investigating whether then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton improperly handled classified document, did not recommend charges despite ‘evidence of potential violations.’

Both investigators cited the unlikelihood of successfully bringing charges against the individuals and the logistical nightmare of making the charges as reason not to act.

The Biden official speculated to Politico that Hur pushed his ‘thumb on the scale during an election season’ with his decision.

Biden lashed out Thursday night at reporters following an address where he remained defiant following the release of Hur’s damning report, which fueled more questions about his mental acuity.

Biden got into a combative exchange with CNN correspondent MJ Lee, who pressed him on his previous comments urging Americans to ‘watch me’ when he was asked about his age.

‘Many [of the] American people have been watching, and they have expressed concerns about your age,’ Lee said.

‘That is your judgment!’ Biden shouted at her. ‘That is your judgment! That is not the judgment of the press.’

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall, Brooke Singman, David Spunt, and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

Capitol Hill is abuzz with the Senate’s progress on the anticipated passage of a standalone $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific without border security measures. 

After overcoming the first procedural hurdle Thursday, the current landscape is fluid, as the upper chamber now gears up for what promises to be a protracted debate with potential weekend sessions and overnight votes looming. 

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s move to file additional cloture votes sets the stage for a potentially drawn-out process, with the Senate bound by procedural rules dictating the timing of the vote, which could happen anytime between Friday evening and Tuesday, Senate aides told Fox News Digital.

‘Now that we are on the bill, we hope to reach an agreement with our Republican colleagues on amendments,’ Schumer said after the vote. ‘For the information of senators, we are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done.’

The $95 billion package advanced in a 67-32 cloture vote Wednesday, also known as a motion to limit debate on a bill, and moved to a final vote. It required a three-fifths majority.

The package includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza and nearly $5 billion for the Indo-Pacific. Democrats brought the package up for a vote after Republicans had blocked the $118 billion package that also included numerous border and immigration provisions Wednesday. 

Republicans had previously said they would not approve funding for Ukraine unless the overwhelmed southern border was secured first.

Now, senators await an additional cloture vote before they can enter a period of debate and the opportunity to add amendments over the next few days, and Republicans are sure to bring forth border security-related proposals. 

Sen. Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., one of the key negotiators for the failed border bill that took months to craft, sparred with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on the floor Thursday afternoon, Graham dubbing the border bill a ‘half a–ed effort’ he couldn’t cast a vote for. 

‘We have not really tried hard to secure the border. We took a well-meaning product. People worked really hard,’ Graham, a staunch Ukraine funding supporter, said on the floor. ‘I applaud you and others for coming out with a product that I thought had a lot of good things in it, but not enough for me.’

Sinema said she looks ‘forward to debating and possibly even supporting one or more of his amendments.’ But amendments and debate are halted until the next procedural vote, which would open the door for considering additional amendments.

‘However, it could be more difficult to consider some of those border-related amendments since the package now does not include any of the border language that we carefully negotiated over the last 4½ months,’ Sinema said. 

Graham and GOP senators Pete Ricketts, Tommy Tuberville, Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Katie Britt, John Barrasso, Josh Hawley, Rand Paul, Roger Marshall and Jim Risch were among the dissenting votes of the standalone bill. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who negotiated the border provisions that failed to pass the Senate on Wednesday, also voted no. 

Seventeen Republicans, including Minority Whip John Thune and senators Chuck Grassley, Roger Wicker, John Kennedy, Mitt Romney and Mike Rounds, voted to advance the bill. 

Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell backed funding for Ukraine and voted to advance the bill but drew criticism from party members who urged lawmakers not to pass foreign aid without securing the border first. 

However, the road to a final vote appears winding, with expectations rife for prolonged discussions and procedural intricacies delaying a definitive decision. 

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, a rabid Kansas City Chiefs fan, even joked on X that he’s prepared for votes to drag out until Super Bowl Sunday. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., appeared determined to make that happen.

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ Paul told reporters. ‘I plan on making them stay here through the weekend, and they’ll get their votes. And they’ll finish up when hell freezes over as far as I’m concerned.

‘By the time the weekend’s over, I hope every American in the country will know that the people who voted for this voted to secure the Ukrainian border before we secure the southern border.’ 

He added he may also ask that the clerk read the Ukraine-Israel bill aloud. 

Rand contended that even if Schumer selects a handful of amendments to bring to the floor, ‘none’ will pass. 

‘The Democrats will vote in block against every amendment,’ he said. 

Against this backdrop, the Senate braces for a marathon of debates, the possibility of amendment votes and the looming specter of prolonged deliberations that could spill into late next week.

On Tuesday, Republicans in the lower chamber instead attempted to pass a standalone bill providing aid only to Israel. It failed after 14 Republicans and 166 Democrats voted against it.

President Biden addressed the nation Thursday night, saying his memory is ‘fine’ and defended his re-election campaign, saying he is the ‘most qualified person in this country to be president.’

Biden’s address to the nation from the White House Thursday night comes just hours after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report, which did not recommend criminal charges against the president for mishandling classified documents. 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.’ 

Hur, though, described Biden as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ Hur, throughout the more than 300-page report, said ‘it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him’ of a serious felony ‘that requires a mental state of willfulness,’ and said he would be ‘well into his eighties.’ 

Biden, on Thursday night, said he agreed.

‘I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing,’ Biden said. ‘I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.’

Biden added: ‘My memory is fine.’

During his address, Biden also fired back at Special Counsel Robert Hur for suggesting he did not remember when his son Beau died.

‘How dare he raise that?’ Biden said. ‘Frankly, when I was asked a question, I thought to myself, what’s that any of your damn business?’

‘Let me tell you something…I swear, since the day he died, every single day…I wear the rosary he got from Our Lady—’ Biden stopped, seemingly forgetting where the rosary was from.

Biden became visibly emotional, and declared: ‘I don’t need anyone—I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away or passed away.’ 

Moments later, though, Biden transitioned to discuss the conflict in the Middle East. Biden referred to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as ‘the president of Mexico.’

But the president took a barrage of questions from the White House press corps, with some shouting and pressing him on whether he is fit to run for re-election. 

‘I’m the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States,’ Biden said, adding that he has to ‘finish the job I started.’ 

Meanwhile, Hur, in the report, said Biden, during his interview with the special counsel’s team, could not remember key details, such as when he was vice president. 

‘In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,’ the report states. ‘He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’).’

‘He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,’ the report continued. ‘And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.’

‘In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,’ the report said.

As for Biden’s memory, prior to the release of the report, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday defended Biden when asked about a gaffe in which the president said he spoke in 2021 with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl — who actually died four years earlier — arguing that misspeaking ‘happens to all of us, and it is common.’ 

That gaffe was similar to the one Biden made on Sunday when he claimed he spoke with François Mitterrand, a French president who died in 1996, at the same G7 meeting.

But Hur also said his investigation ‘uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.’

The materials included ‘marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.’ 

Hur said FBI agents recovered the materials from ‘the garages, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.’

But Biden fired back, citing sections in the report that stated he did not willfully retain the documents. Biden also said he was ‘especially pleased to see special counsel make clear the stark distinction in difference between this case and Mr. Trump’s case,’ saying he cooperated and sat for a five hour-long interview. 

Trump, on the other hand, was charged out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation related to his retention of classified materials. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of Smith’s probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, was then charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Smith’s investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts. Trump pleaded not guilty.

That trial is set to begin on May 20. 

‘They should immediately drop the case against me,’ Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘I am covered by the Presidential Records Act — he wasn’t. He had many, many times more documents — totally unguarded. Mine were always surrounded by Secret Service and in locked rooms.’ 

‘Deranged Jack Smith should drop the case immediately against us.’ 

Trump added: ‘It is election interference…. I did absolutely nothing wrong.’