Wow, we have a lot of material today thanks to Attorney General Merrick Garland testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. This appears to be Garland's opening statement, as he lists the many accomplishments of the Justice Department. However, he says the Justice Department is under attack, and he will not be intimidated into releasing the audio recordings of Special Counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden about the stash of classified documents at his house.
As we reported in May, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for not turning over the audio recordings. Garland addressed that and said that he would not be intimidated into compromising the work of the Justice Department. This is a long video, so if you want to get to the good stuff, skip ahead to about 5:20.
They really don't want these recordings heard. As we reported before, White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a scathing letter to House Republicans saying, "The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”
Boy, Garland really believes the Justice Department is being falsely attacked for weaponizing itself politically. Poor guy.
The Justice Department has provided a transcript of the interview and thinks that's enough. Just a few days ago, though, we learned from the White House that the transcript was mostly accurate but altered, resulting in only very "minor differences." They took out all the "uh"s and "um"s and repeated "I"s and "and"s. Maybe the car noises, too.
And just as a side note, Biden did have classified documents dating back to his days as a senator in his garage and his basement — that's not in dispute. Hur kicked the hornet's nest by NOT recommending prosecution, saying the jury would likely see Biden as a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. That led to the cry that Biden was the sharpest person in every room. As we just reported, Biden challenged to fight a TIME Magazine reporter who asked him about his age.
Thank Mitch McConnell for that.
… and when they asked for the audio to back up the transcript, the same AG who is putting members of Trump’s former team in prison for asserting executive privilege asserted executive privilege?
And then upon being sued, classified these tapes with the highest classification markings so that no one could get them because he knows he doctored those transcripts when he handed them over to Congress?
Did I get that right?
And this is not the biggest story in America?
There's a reason the Justice Department is "under attack." Garland knows it. He's already been held in contempt.