According to recent reports, the House GOP is threatening to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress following the Justice Department’s failure to provide subpoenaed audio recordings of former Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden. The special counsel was charged with investigating Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote a letter to Garland informing him the Justice Department is legally obligated to produce the recording from the Hur investigation.
“The Department continues to withhold additional material responsive to the Committees’ subpoenas – specifically the audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur’s interviews with President Biden and the transcript and audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur’s interviews with Mr. Zwonitzer,” Comer and Jordan told the attorney general. “The February 27 subpoenas create a legal obligation on you to produce this material.”
The two congressmen anticipate for Garland to “produce all responsive materials no later than 12:00 p.m. on April 8, 2024.” The letter further points out that if there is continued failure to provide the audio recordings, Comer and Jordan may take action, such as holding Garland in Contempt of Congress. “If you fail to do so, the Committees will consider taking further action, such as the invocation of contempt of Congress proceedings,” they added.
As mentioned, Special Counsel Robert Hur was appointed to investigate Joe Biden’s handling of sensitive information. However, Hur ultimately concluded that charges should not be brought against the president, partly citing his elderly age and apparent memory complications.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory . . . 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,” Hur wrote following his investigation.
The American Tribune reported on some of the findings from a full transcript of the Hur interview, which illustrates the concerning extent of Biden’s memory complications. According to the transcripts, it would appear Biden had great difficulty recalling details about significant events in his life, such as the death of his son Beau and the timeline of his political career.
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At one point in the interview, Biden was discussing the death of his son Beau, stating, “Remember, in this timeframe my son is — either been deployed or is dying … And, and so what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30.” A present lawyer informed him, “2015.” Biden responded, “Was it 2015 he had died?”
“Trump gets elected in November of 2017?” Biden was again corrected by those present. The president continued, “16, 2016, all right, so why do I have 2017 here?” A lawyer had to explain to Biden that 2017 is when Trump was inaugurated and the Obama-Biden team was leaving the White House. “That’s when you left office,” they said.
Featured image credit: Tom Williams (CQ Roll Call), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merrick_Garland_August_2023_press_conference.jpg