Attorney General Merrick Garland will be held in CONTEMPT of Congress for ... trends now
Republicans will move to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, DailyMail.com confirmed, after the Department of Justice refused to hand over audio tapes of Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
The attorney general had until April 8 to hand over requested materials from Robert Hur's interviews with Biden that led him to conclude the president is 'elderly' and 'well-meaning' but has a 'poor memory.'
They subpoenaed transcripts, notes, audio and video files largely related to Hur's interview.
While the DOJ has handed over transcripts of Hur's interviews with Biden as well as the transcript and audio recordings of an interview with Biden's ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, Republicans are unsatisfied.
They have insisted they need audio from Hur's interview too.
But nearly a month after the deadline to send the audio tapes passed, the House Judiciary Committee is now moving to hold 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 hand over more materials in the Robert Hur investigation of President Biden's classified documents
Hur said he found that Biden had 'willfully' retained classified material but stopped short of filing charges, believing a jury would not convict the president
The Judiciary committee will hold a markup of the contempt hearing on May 16.
The DOJ, however, said in an April letter to the GOP committee chairmen that the department had already been 'extraordinarily' accommodating in giving up the Biden transcript.
They said releasing audio as well might make it harder for prosecutors to secure recorded interviews in the future, with witnesses knowing they could be blasted out into the public.
'The Committees have already received the extraordinary accommodation of the transcripts, which gives you the information you say you need,' the letter, written by assistant attorney general Carlos Uriarte, read.
'To go further by producing the audio files would compound the likelihood that future prosecutors will be unable to secure this level of cooperation. They might have a harder time obtaining consent to an interview at all. It is clearly not in the public interest to render such cooperation with prosecutors and investigators less likely in the future.'
The letter said that the Oversight and Judiciary committees have not identified any valid reasoning for needing the audio of the interview in addition to transcripts.
Still, the GOP disagreed.
Oversight Chairman James Comer clapped back in a statement: 'The Biden Administration does not get to determine what Congress needs and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch.'
Special Counsel Robert Hur testified before the Judiciary Committee about his report on President Joe Biden in
