Biden lashes out at the special prosecutor who sparked Beau's death

Of every detail included in the special counsel's 383-page report, it was the suggestion that President Biden had trouble remembering when his eldest son, Beau, died that seemed to anger the president the most.

At a press conference just hours after the report was released, Mr Biden appeared to have difficulty keeping his composure as he recalled a sentence on page 212 of the report suggesting that “he did not remember, even within a few years,” when his son died.

“I know there is some attention being paid to some language in the report about my recollection of events,” Mr. Biden said, his chin quivering with anger or sadness. “There's even a reference I can't remember when my son died. How on earth does he dare bring that up?'

He said he had worn his son's rosary “since the day he died.”

Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, appears 16 times in the pages of the report prepared by Robert K. Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate Mr. Biden's handling of classified documents.

Investigators describe sifting through boxes of memories sent to the Bidens after Beau's death. Mr. Biden had kept photos of his son on the campaign trail in a folder labeled “Beau Iowa,” and had kept 28 boxes of “letters expressing condolences regarding the death of Beau Biden,” the report said.

Mr. Biden had also kept a folder of clippings labeled “Notable Stories from Beau Biden's Life,” and an envelope labeled “Layout of Beau's House,” which an aide to Mr. Biden identified as particularly important was described for him.

Investigators also focused on the notebooks Biden kept as vice president and found that some contained diary-like entries on “purely personal topics, such as his son's illness and death.”

In one case, Mr. Biden's ruminations were just one page removed from notes he took during a sensitive meeting in the White House Situation Room in 2015. Investigators described Mr. Biden switching back and forth between emotional and professional topics in conversations with a ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, while working on a memoir.

Biden has since mixed that painful personal loss with his political career.

According to people who have spoken to him, he sometimes mentions his son in the present tense in private conversations. Last weekend, Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, visited Beau's grave in Delaware before the president visited the Biden campaign headquarters.

On Thursday, Mr. Biden sparred with reporters who questioned his memory, even as he made the kinds of errors in his memory that he and his advisers had hoped to avoid.

Still, a president who has infused his son's memory into his presidency wanted to make one thing clear, both to the special counsel's office and to his critics.

“I don't need anyone to remind me when he died,” Mr. Biden said.