I can totally understand why Biden chose to hide these damning tapes. But then, I have the mind of a coward, and so I can understand the mind of another coward.
Biden blocks release of damning Hur interview as House prepares to hold Garland in contempt of Congress
The White House has invoked executive privilege to block the release of audio and video from President Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, claiming potential misuse for political purposes. The move comes as House Republicans prepare to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress over the refusal to hand over the files.
Key Details:
The White House argues that Republicans in Congress only want the recordings to use them for political purposes, with the dispute over access to the recordings central to a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.
Garland has advised Biden that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a president's ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure.
Real Clear investigative journalist Julie Kelly however tweeted, "Joe Biden repeatedly denied Trump's claims of privilege in authorizing NARA to turn over presidential records to Congress. Biden claimed Congress' investigation into Jan 6 "insurrection" outweighed presidential privilege claims...So now House GOP has a framework of recent case law to challenge Biden's privilege claims related to denying Congress the recording of his interview with Robert Hur--by using Biden's own words."
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Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a separate letter to President Biden, advised that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege. This privilege protects a president's ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating to official responsibilities. Garland argued that the lawmakers' needs are insufficient to outweigh the negative effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.
Note that these tapes are not personal -- they are evidence collected in investigating Biden's illegally-hoarded classified documents, and therefore are the investigatory property of the taxpayers of the US.
In US v. Nixon, the Supreme Court decided that Nixon did not have the right to hide the "Nixon tapes" from the public.
The decision was unanimous, 8-0. Eight, because the chief justice Rehnquist recused himself.
A refresher from Wikipedia:
Hoping that [Watergate Special Counsel] Jaworski and the public would be satisfied, Nixon turned over edited transcripts of 43 conversations, including portions of 20 conversations demanded by the subpoena....
Less than three weeks after oral arguments, the Court issued its decision.
On July 9, the day following oral arguments, all eight justices (Justice William H. Rehnquist recused himself due to his close association with several Watergate conspirators, including Attorneys General John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst, prior to his appointment to the Court) indicated to each other that they would rule against the president. The justices struggled to settle on an opinion that all eight could agree to, however, with the major issue being how much of a constitutional standard could be established for what executive privilege meant.
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The stakes were so high, in that the tapes most likely contained evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the President and his men, that they wanted no dissent. Despite the Chief Justice's hostility to allowing the other Justices to participate in the drafting of the opinion, the final version was agreed to on July 23, the day before the decision was announced, and would contain the work of all the Justices. The Court's opinion found that the courts could indeed intervene on the matter and that Special Counsel Jaworski had proven a "sufficient likelihood that each of the tapes contains conversations relevant to the offenses charged in the indictment". While the Court acknowledged that the principle of executive privilege did exist, the Court would also directly reject President Nixon's claim to an "absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances."
The Court held that a claim of Presidential privilege as to materials subpoenaed for use in a criminal trial cannot override the needs of the judicial process if that claim is based, not on the ground that military or diplomatic secrets are implicated, but merely on the ground of a generalized interest in confidentiality.
It concluded that "when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice."
Nixon was then ordered to deliver the subpoenaed materials to the District Court.
Nixon resigned sixteen days later, on August 9, 1974.
This is not exactly on point, because the Nixon tapes were sought in an ongoing investigation, whereas Hur closed the case here.
But the tapes contain the evidence for the public to decide whether Hur was right or wrong to avoid prosecution on the technicality that he's senile and can no longer name the year, even within a span of years, when his son died.