The Department of Justice is refusing to prosecute U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt per a letter the agency sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson. The House of Representatives recently voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for his refusal to provide the audio tapes of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
Speaker Johnson addressed the feedback from the DOJ in a recent post on X, voicing the House’s disagreement with the content of the letter. Johnson maintained that the House would subpoena Garland in federal court. The Louisiana Republican also called out the agency for seemingly refusing to punish Garland for his defiance of a congressional subpoena while “aggressively prosecuting conservatives for the same offense.
“The House disagrees with the assertions in the letter from the Department of Justice, and as Speaker, I will be certifying the contempt reports to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. We will also move to enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal court. It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing. This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration,” Johnson wrote on X.
Conservatives on social media have responded to the news, calling out the apparent bias within the federal government, urging elected Republicans to take substantive action. As a result, many are beginning to lose faith in the functionality of America’s governing institutions.
America is in trouble when our department of justice targets one political party while putting the other above the law. Americans no longer have faith in congress, our doj, the fbi, our courts. Nothing. Speaker Johnson, the American people have lost faith in you. Steve bannon, Peter Navarro, President Trump, and j6’rs needed y’all and you stood back and let it happen. Fix this. Merrick Garland is not above the law. Joe Biden is not above the law. Investigate that laptop,” Sassafrass84 said.
Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte said Garland’s conduct has not constituted a crime. “Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” Uriarte wrote to Johnson.
Furthermore, Uriarte disputed that Congress had a legitimate need for the audio tapes, where transcripts have already been provided. “Notwithstanding the Department’s efforts to accommodate the Committees’ requests and the Committees’ lack of a sufficient need for the audio files that would further a legitimate congressional purpose, and despite the President’s directive, on May 16, 2024, the Committees adopted resolutions recommending that the House of Representatives (House) cite the Attorney General for contempt,” he added.
Special counsel Robert Hur was charged with investigating President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. He concluded, in part, that criminal charges should not be brought against Biden because of his elderly age and apparent memory complications.
Featured image credit: By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Mike Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139920652
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