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US--Biden-Classified Documents 05/17 06:12
Two House committees moved ahead Thursday with contempt charges against
Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to turn over audio from President
Joe Biden's interview with a special counsel, advancing the matter after the
White House's decision to block the release of the recording earlier in the day.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two House committees moved ahead Thursday with contempt
charges against Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to turn over
audio from President Joe Biden's interview with a special counsel, advancing
the matter after the White House's decision to block the release of the
recording earlier in the day.
In back-to-back hearings that nearly spilled into early Friday, the House
Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability committees voted along party lines
to advance an effort to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for not turning
over the records. But the timing of any action by the full House, and the
willingness of the U.S. attorney's office to act on the referral, remained
uncertain.
"The department has a legal obligation to turn over the requested materials
pursuant to the subpoena," Rep. Jim Jordan, the GOP chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, said during the hearing. "Attorney General Garland's willful refusal
to comply with our subpoena constitutes contempt of Congress."
The rapid sequence of events Thursday further inflamed tensions between
House Republicans and the Justice Department, setting the stage for another
round of bitter fighting between the two branches of government that seemed
nearly certain to spill over into court.
If House Republicans' efforts against Garland are successful, he will become
the third attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress. The White House
slammed Republicans in a letter earlier Thursday, dismissing their efforts to
obtain the audio as purely political.
"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," White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a scathing letter
to House Republicans ahead of scheduled votes by the two House committees to
refer Garland to the Justice Department for the contempt charges.
"Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement
materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for
potential political gain is inappropriate," Siskel added.
Garland separately advised Biden in a letter made public Thursday that the
audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a
president's ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of
immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating
to official responsibilities.
The attorney general told reporters that the Justice Department has gone to
extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about special
counsel Robert Hur's investigation, including a transcript of Biden's interview
with Hur. But, Garland said, releasing the audio could jeopardize future
sensitive and high-profile investigations. Officials have suggested handing
over the tape could make future witnesses concerned about cooperating with
investigators.
"There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on
the Justice Department," Garland said. "This request, this effort to use
contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just
most recent."
The Justice Department warned Congress that a contempt effort would create
"unnecessary and unwarranted conflict," with Assistant Attorney General Carlos
Uriarte saying, "It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held
by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president's
claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress."
Siskel's letter to lawmakers comes after the uproar from Biden's aides and
allies over Hur's comments about Biden's age and mental acuity, and it
highlights concerns in a difficult election year over how potentially
embarrassing moments from the lengthy interview could be exacerbated by the
release, or selective release, of the audio.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the White House's move,
accusing Biden of suppressing the tape because he's afraid to have voters hear
it during an election year.
"The American people will not be able to hear why prosecutors felt the
President of the United States was, in Special Counsel Robert Hur's own words,
an 'elderly man with a poor memory,' and thus shouldn't be charged," Johnson
said the during a press conference on the House steps.
House Democrats defended Biden's rationale during the back-to-back hearings
on Thursday, citing the massive trove of documents and witnesses who have been
made available to Republicans as part of their more than yearlong probe into
Biden and his family.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on
Thursday that Republicans want to make it seem like they've uncovered
wrongdoing by the Justice Department.
"In reality, the Attorney General and DOJ have been fully responsive to this
committee in every way that might be material to their long dead impeachment
inquiry," the New York lawmaker said. "Sometimes, they have been too
responsive, in my opinion, given the obvious bad faith of the MAGA majority."
The contempt effort is seen by Democrats as a last-ditch effort to keep
Republicans' impeachment inquiry into Biden alive, despite a series of setbacks
in recent months and flailing support for articles of impeachment within the
GOP conference.
A transcript of the Hur interview showed Biden struggling to recall some
dates and occasionally confusing some details -- something longtime aides say
he's done for years in both public and private -- but otherwise showing deep
recall in other areas. Biden and his aides are particularly sensitive to
questions about his age. At 81, he's the oldest-ever president, and he's
seeking another four-year term.
Hur, a former senior official in the Trump administration Justice
Department, was appointed as a special counsel in January 2023 following the
discovery of classified documents in multiple locations tied to Biden.
Hur's report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center
in Washington, in parts of Biden's Delaware home, and in his Senate papers at
the University of Delaware were retained by "mistake."
However, investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure
related to a subset of records found in Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, house,
including in a garage, an office and a basement den.
The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama
administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. Biden kept records that
documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009
Thanksgiving holiday. Some of that information was shared with a ghostwriter
with whom he published memoirs in 2007 and 2017.
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