By Morgan Phillips
President Biden has asserted executive privilege over the audio tapes of his interview with ex-special counsel Robert Hur in a move to shield Attorney General from criminal charges as Republicans move to hold him in contempt.
‘We have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that a committees get responses to their legitimate requests, but this is not one,’ Garland told reporters.
‘There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly, unfounded attacks on the Justice Department. This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just the most recent the effort to threaten to defund our investigations, and the way in which there are contributions through an atmosphere that puts our agents and our prosecutors at risk. These are wrong.’
A pair of Republican-led House committees will advance resolutions to hold Garland in contempt of Congress on Thursday.
The Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee will hold dual markups of their contempt resolutions on Thursday, Judiciary in the morning and Oversight in the evening.
Both Oversight Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan issued subpoenas to Garland for the audio of ex-special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden. They say Garland refused to comply with either subpoena, so both committees will move to hold him in contempt.
The Justice Department says that it has been ‘extraordinarily’ accommodating to the Republicans’ requests for information. It has handed over a transcript of the interview, but not the recording itself.
‘There must be consequences for refusing to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas and we will move to hold Attorney General Garland in contempt of Congress,’ Comer said in a statement to DailyMail.com Monday.
‘These audio recordings are important to our investigation of President Biden’s willful retention of classified documents and his fitness to be President of the United States.’
The attorney general had until April 8 to hand over requested materials from Robert Hur’s interviews with Biden that led him to conclude the president is ‘elderly’ and ‘well-meaning’ but has a ‘poor memory.’
They subpoenaed transcripts, notes, audio and video files largely related to Hur’s interview.
While the DOJ has handed over transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden as well as the transcripts of an interview with Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, Republicans are unsatisfied.
They have insisted they need audio from the Hur and Zwonitzer interviews too.
They said releasing audio as well might make it harder for prosecutors to secure recorded interviews in the future, with witnesses knowing they could be blasted out into the public.
‘The Committees have already received the extraordinary accommodation of the transcripts, which gives you the information you say you need,’ the letter, written by assistant attorney general Carlos Uriarte, read.
‘To go further by producing the audio files would compound the likelihood that future prosecutors will be unable to secure this level of cooperation. They might have a harder time obtaining consent to an interview at all. It is clearly not in the public interest to render such cooperation with prosecutors and investigators less likely in the future.’
The letter said that the Oversight and Judiciary committees have not identified any valid reasoning for needing the audio of the interview in addition to transcripts.
Still, the GOP disagreed.
Comer clapped back in a statement: ‘The Biden Administration does not get to determine what Congress needs and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch.’
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So…. the transcript can be made public, but the audio the transcript is taken from is “privileged”? There are no bounds or limits to the corruption and fascism of this regime. And these are the people that say TRUMP is the threat. The threat is already in place and control.
Its bigger than just this administration
Massive cover up that makes watergate look like romper room.
biden jeopardized national security by sharing classified documents with his ghost writer.
biden is guilty of multiple felonies. Intent is not a factor in his theft of classsified documents. Motivation is the critical factor. biden stole classified documents to sell them to our enemies.
Herr Obergruppenfuhrer Garland should be held in contempt by everyone.
Its not that, everyone that goes to DC instantly becomes an expert in investing and book writing, able to parlay their public service salary into multi-millions. Beat the average professionally handled 401 or retirement fund by 100 or 2000% Gaining while those accounts lose.
Mind you they also have time along with investing to write or read complex omnibus bills and be on committees travel, and campaign also paid speeches.