House committees vote to pursue contempt case against Garland
Joe Biden looks on as Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers remarks during a Medal of Valor ceremony, Monday, May 16, 2022, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)
President Biden has launched a plan in which he is attempting to have Attorney General Merrick Garland withhold evidence of his diminished capabilities from Congress, but two committees in the House are not going along.
BREAKING: Our Committee Has PASSED a Resolution & Report Recommending Attorney General Garland Be Held in Contempt of Congress for Defying a Subpoena
Accountability is here.
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) May 17, 2024
House Judiciary Committee votes to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not providing audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview of President Biden that were subpoenaed by the committee. pic.twitter.com/LFVBl2nx8M
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 16, 2024
It was the House Oversight Committee that late Thursday confirmed it has "PASSED a resolution & report recommending Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena."
A conviction on that charge could bring a prison sentence for Garland.
Earlier it was the House Judiciary Committee that said it had voted "to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not providing audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur's interview of President Biden that were subpoenaed by the committee."
The transcripts of the tapes already have been released, and they show Biden with "diminished" capabilities, being forgetful about key dates and people. Hur was interviewing him about his apparent decision to willfully and knowingly take classified government documents to which he was not entitled and keep them in his office and home, even a garage.
He even read some of them to a ghostwriter.
Hur's conclusion was that Biden probably violated the law, but he recommended against prosecution because of Biden's "diminished" capabilities at his advanced age.
That case stands in stark contrast to the Biden administration's decision to pursue President Donald Trump with felony charges for documents from his own presidency that he had in his home, documents that reports suggest the government instructed Trump's team to take there.
Biden is trying to claim executive privilege over the audio tapes in an attempt to conceal them from the public. Congress wants them because the audio can reveal a great deal more about Biden's behavior during the interviews than a stark transcript.
The Gateway Pundit explained that Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer explained Biden no longer can assert executive privilege over the audio because the transcript already has been released publicly.
"If the attorney general wants to defy Congress and not produce the audio recordings, he will face consequences for those actions," Comer explained. "The path before us is clear. I urge this committee to move forward with holding the attorney general in contempt."
The meeting briefly devolved into chaos when Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez erupted at some comments from barb-throwing Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Garland claimed he doesn't have to comply with the subpoena from Congress.
"A visibly rattled Garland made the statements during a press conference earlier Thursday to reporters after Joe Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur," the report explained.
Comer said, "The Biden administration does not get to determine what Congress needs and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch. The American people deserve to hear the actual audio of President Biden’s answers to Special Counsel Hur."
Hur's conclusion about Biden's possession of classified documents noted a jury would see him as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
The White House had tried to get Hur to censor those comments before the report came out, but Hur explained those explanations were needed to support his recommendation against charges.
The transcript noted, among other things, Biden forgot when he was vice president to Barack Obama.
WND had reported on the privilege claim.
It was White House counsel Edward Siskel who claimed in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, “Because of the president’s longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and independence of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement investigations, he has decided to assert executive privilege over the recordings."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Biden now "is apparently afraid for the citizens of this country and everyone to hear those tapes."
"They obviously confirm what the special counsel has found, and would likely cause I suppose, in his estimation, such alarm with the American people that the president is using all of his power to suppress their release and rather than defend our closest ally at war, President Biden is using his authority to defend himself politically."
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