DOJ hands over Joe Biden’s ghostwriter’s transcript to appease Republicans, but REFUSES to release audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur’s interview and now Merrick Garland can be held in contempt

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday turned over transcripts of an interview with Mark Zwonitzer, President Biden’s ghost writer, to whom the president gave classified documents, but declined to release audio of ex-special counsel Robert Hur’s Biden interview.

Although the DOJ has provided transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden, which concluded that the president is “elderly” and “well-intentioned” but has a “poor memory,” Republicans are dissatisfied. They insist they also need audio of the interview.

They subpoenaed transcripts, notes, audio and video files largely related to Hur’s interview. They gave Attorney General Merrick Garland until Monday afternoon and threatened him with contempt if he didn’t comply.

The DOJ said in a new letter to Republican 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.

It said the DOJ had “met or exceeded the committees’ information needs” as stated in the subpoenas.

“Our cooperative efforts demonstrate that we are and remain willing to do our part to show the American people that the officials who serve them can work together productively in the public interest while avoiding unnecessary conflict,” continued Uriarte.

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.”

“It is curious that the Biden administration is refusing to release the audio of President Biden’s interview with the Special Counsel after the transcript has been released. Why wouldn’t the American people be able to hear the actual audio of his answers? The American people demand transparency from their leaders, not obstruction.”

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.

“Yet the Committees have responded with escalation and threats of criminal contempt. The response of the committees is difficult to explain in terms of a lack of information or frustration with any information or investigative task, given the actual behavior of the department. We are therefore concerned that the committees are disappointed not because you did not receive information, but because you did. We urge the Committees to avoid conflict rather than seek it out.”

Hur, who interviewed Biden on October 8 and 9, 2023, resigned as special counsel and left the DOJ shortly before testifying in Congress last month.

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 drew opposition from all sides: Republicans who wondered why he wouldn’t indict the president, and Democrats who objected to his description of Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, older man with a bad memory.”

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 during a high-stakes hearing earlier this month.

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.