WASHINGTON – The Republican-led House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to pass Attorney General Merrick Garland Contempt of Congress.
At issue is Garland’s failure to release the audio recording of special counsel Robert Huron’s interview with President Joe Biden about his handling of classified documents. After Hur declined to convict Biden, Republicans requested the audio, in part because the jury might sympathize with him.an old man with poor memory.”
Last month, both the House Judiciary and Oversight committees approved a report recommending that the House hold Garland in contempt for defying congressional subpoenas on the tapes. On Tuesday, the GOP-controlled Rules Committee voted along party lines contempt resolution to the floor of the house.
“It’s not a complicated matter: The executive branch and its agencies, including the Justice Department, do not trump Congress’ right to control those agencies,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told the Rules Committee. “We, as members of the House of Representatives, have a duty to ensure that the subpoenas of Congress are fully complied with by those who receive them – people, companies and especially the federal government.”
Democrats opposed it Full transcript of Biden interview has already been made public, and they have issued warnings that Republicans could manipulate the audio. The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler of New York, said Republicans were targeting Garland after failing to do so. Gather enough evidence to impeach Biden.
“What do our Republican friends do when the investigation comes up short?” Simply put, they engage in fantasy. That’s what they’re doing here today. “They could not come up with any illegal actions of the president, now they have trained their eyes on the general prosecutor,” said Nadler.
“This is not really about a policy disagreement with the DOJ. This is about feeding the MAGA base after 18 months of investigations that have resulted in failure after failure,” Nadler continued. “This contempt resolution will do nothing but tarnish the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant. Whatever Republicans say about him today.”
A full House vote will be a nail-biter given the GOP’s paper majority. Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., who was sworn in last week to fill the seat left by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s resignation. Even so, Republicans can afford only two GOP defections in any vote. Just three GOP no votes wouldn’t have killed the hate effort.
But Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. and his management team are confident enough about the number of whips that they are moving into the ground. Several vulnerable Republicans, including Reps. Mike Lawler and Mark Molinaro of New York, have said they will vote yes. In November, another top Democratic target, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., expressed reluctance about the contempt but said he would support it, arguing that the public’s voice deserves to be heard.
“I wish this could be resolved without a sound of disrespect. But the Attorney General owes the American people his voice. “When Special Counsel Hur showed that President Biden knowingly stored classified information in his home and garage, the comparisons become more similar to the DOJ’s prosecution of President Trump,” Bacon said in a statement.
“Trump is on trial, but Hur claims that President Biden is too old and has a bad memory to never stand trial. This is a very important claim against our current president and the Democratic candidate,” Bacon added. “Citizens deserve to evaluate it themselves.”
Even if Wednesday’s vote is successful, it is largely a political exercise. Biden and his administration argued that they had executive privilege in refusing to turn in the vote, but they ruled out the possibility of Garland being prosecuted for ignoring the subpoenas. It’s also unprecedented for Justice Department prosecutors to go after the head of their own agency in a contempt case.
The House of Representatives voted to appoint then-President Donald Trump as the attorney general. William BarrContempt of Congress in 2019 Eric Holder held Barack Obama in contempt for refusing to hand over congressional documents in 2012 when he took over as AG. Fast and furious research. None of them have been prosecuted.
This week’s contempt vote is the latest push for what Republicans have described as a “two-tiered” justice system — one that prosecutes and prosecutes Trump but lets Biden off the hook. House Republicans have railed against what they see as the “weaponization” of government and the justice system by Trump and his allies, even creating a special weapons committee to investigate. Meanwhile, the Justice Department issued a ruling against the president’s son on Tuesday Hunter Biden on gun chargesand lead prosecutions against the Department of Justice two Democratic members Congress on charges of bribery.
Nearly a year ago, a federal grand jury indicted Trump on dozens of felony counts related to his handling of classified documents after his presidency.
But on February 8, Hur announced he would do so after a month-long investigation He refuses to judge Biden for handling classified documents. Hur said Biden’s practice of withholding and releasing classified material after becoming vice president “poses serious national security risks.” But he explained that he did not press charges because it would be difficult for a jury to convict him – “a former president who by then was in his eighties – of a felony requiring a mental state of will.”
Garland testified last week before the House Judiciary Committee that he provided the panel with the Hur report, allowed Hur to testify for “more than five hours” and “went beyond precedent” to provide the committee with transcripts of the Hur-Biden interview.
But Garland argued that turning over the tapes would “chill cooperation with the department in future investigations” and “could affect witnesses’ responses if they believe the audio of their interviews with law enforcement agencies will be released to Congress and the public.”
Garland condemned the contempt, calling it “just the latest in a long line of attacks on the work of the Justice Department.”
“This comes alongside threats of special department investigations and, most recently, a special prosecutor’s prosecution of the former president. This comes alongside false claims by a local district attorney that a jury verdict in state court was somehow controlled by the Department of Justice,” Garland continued. New York shuts down money case against Trump. “This conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself.”