President Biden reportedly considered resigning as vice president in protest over former President Obama’s Afghanistan policies in 2009, fearing the war would turn into “another Vietnam.”
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents revealed his improper retention of sensitive intelligence sources and methods related to Afghanistan.
The report detailed Biden’s strong opposition to sending more troops to Afghanistan in 2009 and his motive to retain classified documents to prove his stance correct.
“Tomorrow the President is going to make a fateful decision regarding Afghanistan – as I sat looking out the window at the sea – thinking I should resign in protest over what will bring his administration down,” Biden wrote in 2009.
“Although I obviously wasn’t there I feel like this is what it must have felt like for Kennedy then Johnson in the early days of VTN [Vietnam]. I feel guilty and boxed in myself. Guilty for not having been more successful w/ the President – and staying. Boxed in by knowing or at least feeling that my resignation would only harden his position and leave him with one less voice,” he wrote.
Biden “had a strong motive to keep the classified Afghanistan documents,” the report noted.
“He wanted the record to show that he was right about Afghanistan; that his critics were wrong; and that he had opposed President Obama’s mistaken decision forcefully,” it said.
“There is evidence that, after his vice presidency, Mr. Biden willfully retained marked classified documents about Afghanistan and unmarked classified handwritten notes in his notebooks, both of which he stored in unsecured places in his home. He had no legal authority to do so, and his retention of these materials, and disclosure of classified information from his notebooks to his ghostwriter, risked serious damage to America’s national security,” it added.
Despite this, Hur announced that he would not pursue criminal charges against Biden.
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