House Republicans have taken further action in their ongoing conflict with the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden. Chairmen Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) of the House Committees on Judiciary and Oversight have issued a threat of contempt towards Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter sent on Monday. The letter states that Garland was subpoenaed on February 27 to provide access to audio recordings of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with Biden and his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer during the investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
However, the DOJ has only provided redacted transcripts of Hur’s interview with Biden and has refused to release the audio recordings, despite the committees’ specific request in a letter dated March 9. The DOJ has also failed to provide either the transcript or audio of the interview with Zwonitzer.
The letter to Garland says “[t]he Committees expect you to produce all responsive materials no later than 12:00 p.m. on April 8, 2024. If you fail to do so, the Committees will consider taking further action, such as the invocation of contempt of Congress proceedings.”
Jordan and Comer also alleged that the DOJ provided false information to the committee about the department’s proposed schedule for finishing its examination of the transcripts:
“According to news reports, several news outlets received and reviewed the transcripts of Special Counsel Hur’s interviews with President Biden before they were produced to the Committees, despite the Department’s representation that it had only completed the “interagency review” of the transcripts the morning of March 12 shortly before it produced the transcripts to the Committees. Because the Department and the White House were presumably the only two entities with copies of the transcripts before the Committees received them, we can only assume that, for political purposes, the Department and White House provided the transcripts to news outlets before the Department completed its “interagency review” process. If that is not the case, we can only assume that the Department misled the Committees about the timing of its completion of such process.”
Hur submitted his report in February, and although not accusing Biden, the report brought up important inquiries regarding Biden’s recollection.
The report says, “[Biden] did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.” Biden also appeared unable to remember his time as vice president:
“In his interview with our office… He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013, when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”).”
