Jill Biden Revelations Emerge From Robert Hur Transcript

Jill Biden offered to pay for architecture school for Joe Biden if he would quit politics, Joe Biden told Justice Department investigator Robert Hur.

Transcripts of President Biden's two-day interview with Hur were released by members of Congress on Tuesday ahead of Hur's congressional testimony about Biden's handling of presidential documents.

The interviews were conducted on October 8 and 9, 2023, at the White House.

They contain 268 pages of interviews with Hur, a special counsel appointed to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents.

The president told Hur that his wife did not want him to run for the Senate again and knew that he had a passion for architecture and design.

At least twice during his interviews with Hur, Biden described himself as a "frustrated architect".

"In order to try to convince me not to run for the Senate for the 19th time, my wife said: 'Look, you don't run - I'll pay for architectural school for you.'"

When people in the White House laughed at his comment, Biden replied: "I'm deadly serious, not a joke."

Biden didn't really run for the Senate 19th times but was exaggerating his long political career for effect. He was elected to the Senate seven times.

When Hur asked him about places where presidential papers might have been stored, Biden recalled he set up a home office and would work in his pajamas.

He again drew laughter when he said that his wife didn't like that arrangement.

Later, when discussing his study library and where documents might have been stored, Biden told Hur: "I hope you didn't find risque pictures of my wife in a bathing suit. Which you probably did. She's beautiful. But all kidding aside, I have a library and the library has two filing cabinets in it and it was built into the walls," he said.

Biden then appeared to struggle to remember the name for a fax machine. He said the library had "space for a copy machine, for a...what do you call it, when they send these..."

When White House counsel Ed Siskel informs the president the words he is looking for are: "fax machine." Biden confirms that it was a fax machine he was thinking about.

Biden had the documents at his Wilmington, Delaware, home and his former office in Washington, D.C.

In his report released last month, Hur described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" and recommended that he not face prosecution for holding the documents.

Democrats had criticized the report for suggesting the president was senile or forgetful. Republicans criticized it for not recommending that Biden be prosecuted, especially as Donald Trump is facing a trial for holding presidential records.

In his 388-page report, Hur said Biden stored notecards containing classified material "in unlocked drawers at home," viewing them "as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part."

Hur added, "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."

In June, Trump, who has all but secured the 2024 Republican presidential nomination with a string of victories on Super Tuesday, was charged with a number of offenses over claims he mishandled classified documents and obstructed efforts to return them to the relevant authorities.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 felony charges in the case. He was charged alongside Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta, Trump's former personal aide, both of whom have also pleaded not guilty. Trump has insisted the charges against him are politically motivated and denies any wrongdoing.

Correction: 3/12/24, 4:10 p.m. ET: This story was updated with the correct spelling of Robert Hur in the headline.