On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution that would hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt on Congress of refusing to provide the audio recordings of the interview between Special Counsel Robert Hur and President Joe Biden.
However, reports indicate that the resolution is mostly symbolic, as the move would require approval from the House, where Republicans hold only a slight majority. The attorney general and House Republicans have gone back and forth over the audio recordings, where Garland ignored a final warning last month to comply with a subpoena.
Subsequently, the GOP representatives in the House have sought to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with their efforts. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) recently illustrated the initiative while blasting the White House’s claim of executive privilege.
“[We] will move forward with its markup of a resolution and report recommending to the House of Representatives that Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for defying a lawful subpoena,” according to a statement from Comer. “The White House is asserting executive privilege over the recordings, but it has already waived privilege by releasing the transcript of the interview.”
Just before the committee gathered to consider the motion against Garland, President Biden asserted executive privilege to prevent the release of the audio tapes. The Department of Justice has also claimed that Biden’s executive privilege prohibits Congress from holding Garland in contempt.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung commented on Biden’s assertion of executive privilege, criticizing an alleged double standard regarding former President Donald Trump’s treatment. “Crooked Joe Biden and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicized the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe,” Cheung said.
Special Counsel Robert Hur was assigned to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Hur’s conclusion stated, in part, that the president should not be charged over the classified documents because of his elderly age and poor memory.
According to Hur, “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.”
Republicans have sought the audio recordings as part of a broader impeachment effort into the president. While the transcript is already available, the GOP claims Biden is concerned about the subsequent release of the audio recordings that could further illustrate the extent of his memory complications. Furthermore, Republicans have suggested Biden’s use of executive privilege is meant to hinder their executive oversight.
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan pointed out that while Biden may have invoked privilege, it does not change the fact that their subpoena has been disregarded. “This last-minute invocation does not change the fact that the attorney general has not complied with our subpoena,” Jordan 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
"*" indicates required fields