The attorney general has failed to turn over subpoenaed recordings of Biden’s interview with special counsel Hur to two House committees.
Republicans on two House committees voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on Thursday night despite President Joe Biden’s intervention to block them from obtaining his recorded interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.
After a spirited debate, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted 18–15 on May 16 to approve a resolution to hold Mr. Garland in contempt for refusing to provide impeachment investigators with the recordings in defiance of congressional subpoenas.
The House Oversight Committee followed suit hours later, voting 24-20 to approve their own resolution.
The measures would need to pass the full House before a referral is made to the Justice Department, but whether House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will bring the resolutions to the floor is unclear.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
The vote came hours after the president, at Mr. Garland’s request, asserted executive privilege over the recordings, precluding prosecution of the attorney general for his noncompliance.
The tapes were recorded during Mr. Hur’s investigation of President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Although the special counsel concluded that the president had willfully retained and disclosed classified materials in violation of the law, he ultimately decided not to prosecute, reasoning that a jury would be sympathetic toward an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
On May 16, Republicans pointed to that decision as a reason for them to hear the recordings for themselves.
“If our commander-in-chief is so incompetent that he cannot stand trial—if he’s not fit to stand trial—then he’s too incompetent, for God’s sake, to be the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said.
“And if President Biden is competent and special counsel Hur’s assessment was incorrect, then President Biden should face a jury for his crimes of mishandling classified materials.”
‘What’s the Big Deal?’
While the Justice Department has provided the Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability committees with transcripts of the solicited recordings, the department has refused to turn over the recordings themselves.
