House Republicans are moving forward with their plan to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress after the Justice Department refused to provide audio from special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden.
The House Judiciary Committee will meet on May 16 to discuss a contempt report and then vote on holding Garland in contempt, a source familiar confirmed to National Review. The planned committee vote was first reported on Monday by the Washington Examiner.
The dispute stems from the Justice Department’s unwillingness to give House Republicans audio from special counsel Robert Hur’s two-day interview of President Biden for his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The Justice Department wrote two letters to House Republicans last month explaining its decision not to provide audio from Hur’s interview.
Towards the end of April, the Justice Department wrote its second letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio.) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.), accusing them of failing to give a legitimate reason for demanding the audio.
“We have repeatedly invited the Committees to identify how these audio recordings from law enforcement files would serve the purposes for which you say you want them,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote.
“Despite our many requests, the Committees have not articulated a legitimate congressional need to obtain audio recordings from Mr. Hur’s investigation, let alone one that outweighs the Department’s strong interest in protecting the confidentiality of law enforcement files.”
House Republicans initially threatened in late March to hold Garland in contempt if the Justice Department did not comply with subpoenas and turn over all the relevant materials from Hur’s investigation.
Hur’s final report on Biden’s “willful” possession of classified materials caused a stir because of Hur’s observations about Biden’s advanced age and declining mental faculties. Ultimately, Hur declined to recommend criminal charges against the sitting president.
The special counsel specifically noted Biden’s difficulties remembering exactly when he served as vice president and the year his late son Beau Biden passed away. Transcripts released ahead of Hur’s testimony in March appeared to vindicate Hur’s telling of events when it comes to Biden’s memory issues.
To begin his testimony, Hur defended the necessity of examining Biden’s mental state for coming to his conclusion that the sitting president should not face criminal charges. A major moment in his testimony took place when Hur confirmed the Biden administration attempted to pressure him into watering down his language describing Biden’s memory lapses. Garland later shot down liberal critics who believe he should have stepped in and edited the draft of Hur’s report.
Throughout his testimony, Democrats sought to portray Hur as a partisan prosecutor hoping to harm Biden’s reelection campaign. Hur rejected Democrats’s framing of his report and denied the suggestion that his report exonerated President Biden.