Republicans will move to charge Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt of Congress, DailyMail.com confirmed, after the Justice Department refused to hand over audio tapes of Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
The attorney general had until April 8 to turn over the requested material from Robert Hur’s interviews with Biden, from which he concluded that the president is “elderly” and “well-intentioned” but has a “poor memory.”
They subpoenaed transcripts, notes, audio and video files largely related to Hur’s interview.
Although the DOJ has turned over transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden, as well as the transcripts and audio recordings of an interview with Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, Republicans are dissatisfied.
They have insisted that they also need audio of Hur’s interview.
But nearly a month after the deadline for sending the tapes passed, the House Judiciary Committee is now moving to find Garland in contempt of Congress, DailyMail.com confirmed.
Republicans on Monday threatened to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress if he does not turn over more material in the Robert Hur investigation into President Biden’s classified documents
Hur said he discovered that Biden had “intentionally” withheld classified material, but stopped short of filing charges, believing a jury would not convict the president.
The Judiciary Committee will hold a summary contempt hearing on May 16.
However, the DOJ said this in an April letter to the G.O.P committee chairs that the department had already been “extremely” accommodating in giving up the Biden transcript.
They said releasing audio could make it more difficult in the future for prosecutors to secure recorded interviews where witnesses knew they could be blasted into the audience.
“The committees have already received the extraordinary amendment of the transcripts, which will provide you with the information you say you need,” read the letter, written by Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte.
“If we were to go even further by producing the audio files, it would increase the likelihood that future prosecutors will not be able to ensure this level of cooperation. It may be more difficult for them to get permission for an interview. “It is clearly not in the public interest to make such cooperation with prosecutors and investigators less likely in the future.”
The letter stated that the Oversight and Judiciary Committees have not identified any valid reason for needing the audio of the interview in addition to the transcripts.
Yet the GOP disagreed.
Oversight Chairman James Comer clapped back in a statement: “The Biden administration should not dictate what Congress does and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch.”
Special counsel Robert Hur testified before the Judiciary Committee in March about his report on President Joe Biden
Hur, in a report explaining his decision not to prosecute Biden for mishandling classified documents, drew opposition from all sides — Republicans who questioned why he wouldn’t indict the president, and Democrats who criticized his description of Biden as a ‘sympathetic, benevolent’ man. that is, older man with poor memory.’
“The February 27 subpoenas create a legal obligation for you to produce this material,” Republican lawmakers wrote to Garland. “If you fail to do so, the committees will consider taking further action, including invoking contempt of congressional proceedings.”
The Justice Department has said only that it is conducting an “interagency review” of classified and confidential information in the material.
Hur said he discovered that Biden had “intentionally” withheld classified material, but stopped short of filing charges, believing a jury would not convict the president.
He explained his decision to make the assessment at the hearing: ‘I knew that to make my position credible. I couldn’t just announce that no charges would be filed; I had to explain why. I had to show my work.’
“We found evidence that the president deliberately withheld classified material after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen,” Hur said at a high-stakes hearing in April.
In interviews with investigators, Biden became confused about the dates he served as vice president and could not even remember the year his son Beau died, according to the transcript reviewed by DailyMail.com.
The box circled in the foreground contained documents about Afghanistan. The photo was taken in Biden’s garage in December 2022, along with other household items
Special counsel Robert Hur spent a year investigating files found in President Joe Biden’s home and former office. He said Biden’s status as president meant he could not be prosecuted
Biden forgot the year Beau died, when Trump was elected, saying “I don’t remember,” “I don’t remember,” and “I have no fucking idea” more than a hundred times while joking and making car noises with the researchers.
And it said his cavalier attitude toward classified documents, such as his habit of reading sensitive files to a ghostwriter, posed a significant risk to national security.
One of the reasons they decided not to press charges was because “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury at trial, as he did during our interview with him, as a likable, well-meaning, older man with a poor memory . .’
Hur said during testimony that he described Biden this way because of his “inability to remember certain things” and that he had to be pressed by his lawyers to remember certain dates.
According to transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden on October 8 and 9, 2023, Biden’s lawyer had to tell him the year his son Beau died of brain cancer and the president joked about the special counsel finding photos of his wife Jill in a swimsuit.
I just hope you didn’t find any risqué photos of my wife in a swimsuit. Which you probably did. She is beautiful,” Biden said.
“What month did Beau die?” Biden mused at one point, adding, “Oh God, May 30.”
‘He didn’t even remember within a few years that his son Beau died. And his memory seemed hazy as he described the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” Hur said.
A White House lawyer subsequently agreed to the year 2015.
“Was it in 2015 that he died?” Biden asked.