Republicans plan to cite Garland for contempt due to Biden’s convo with Hur

EXCLUSIVE — The House Judiciary Committee is aiming to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interview with the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents.

The Republican-led committee is planning to hold a meeting to review a contempt report and hold a committee vote on the matter on May 16, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

The committee’s decision to move forward with contempt marks a dramatic escalation in its monthslong fight to obtain recordings of Biden’s interview, which former special counsel Robert Hur conducted last October.

Hur found after his investigation that Biden mishandled classified documents from his time as vice president and senator and that Biden disclosed classified information to his ghostwriter in 2017. However, based on Hur’s interview with Biden, the special counsel found that the president could give a jury reasonable doubt that he acted willfully because he came off as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The president’s mental acuity was one reason Hur said he declined to prosecute Biden.

The Department of Justice provided Congress with a redacted transcript of Hur’s interview, and the transcript confirmed the president suffered memory lapses at times, while at other times, he was sharp and displayed an ability to recall information without issue.

Audio recordings of the interview could shed additional light on the president’s mental fitness or other aspects of the interview not captured through a written transcript.

Contempt is a tool that Congress has used at times to enforce subpoenas, though holding a Cabinet official in contempt is rare.

If the House votes to hold Garland in contempt, it would mark the fourth time in U.S. history that a Cabinet member has received such a condemnation. The House voted to hold two former attorneys general, Eric Holder and Bill Barr, in contempt in 2012 and 2019, respectively. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was held in contempt alongside Barr.

When the House approves contempt, a criminal referral is made to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., which then must weigh whether to move forward with prosecution. As was the case with Holder and Barr, who were not prosecuted by their own departments, it is unlikely that U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves would pursue Garland.

The DOJ has been fending off numerous requests for the audio recordings, not just from Congress but also the conservative groups Judicial Watch and the Heritage Foundation, as well as from CNN. All three have filed legal complaints against the DOJ to enforce Freedom of Information Act requests for the audio, and the DOJ is planning to fight the groups in a joint lawsuit.

After the House Judiciary and Oversight committees warned that contempt would be the House’s next step, a DOJ spokesman disputed the legitimacy of the move and warned that releasing audio would have a chilling effect on witnesses coming forward to law enforcement.

“We have … repeatedly urged the Committees to avoid unnecessary conflict and to respect the public interest in the Department’s ability to conduct effective investigations by protecting sensitive law enforcement files,” Carlos Uriarte, an assistant attorney general, wrote on April 25.

The DOJ declined to comment on the Judiciary Committee’s decision to move forward with contempt.

Separately, the committee on Monday threatened Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of Biden’s memoir Promise Me, Dad, with contempt if Zwonitzer did not comply by May 20 with a subpoena for all records related to his work on the book, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in the letter to Zwonitzer’s attorney Louis Freeman that Freeman had provided no materials the committee requested and that objections Freeman has raised with Jordan’s subpoena are “unfounded.”

Freeman did not respond to a request for comment.