WASHINGTON — House Republicans filed a lawsuit Monday against Attorney General Merrick Garland over the audio recording of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel in his classified documents case, asking courts to enforce their subpoena and reject the White House’s attempt to block Congress from accessing the materials.
The lawsuit filed by the House Judiciary Committee marks the latest demand by Republicans against the Justice Department as legal issues weigh on the 2024 presidential campaign. The legal action comes weeks after the White House blocked Garland from turning over the audio recording to Congress, asserting executive privilege.
House Republicans responded with a vote to make Garland only the third attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department refused to accept the contempt referral, citing the agency’s “longstanding position and consistent practice” of not prosecuting officials who fail to comply with subpoenas, due to executive privilege.
Garland refuses to admit
The lawsuit says House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made a “last-ditch effort” last week to get Garland to resolve the matter without legal action, but the attorney general referred Republicans to the White House, which rejected the “effort to find a solution to this impasse.”
The congressional investigation began with the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report in February, which found evidence that Biden, a Democrat, intentionally withheld and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen. Hur did not, however, recommend criminal charges.
Republicans, outraged by Hur’s decision, issued a subpoena for audio of her interviews with Biden in the spring. But the Justice Department turned over only some of the records, omitting the audio of the interview with Biden, whose alarm bells have been raised by his apparent physical and mental inability to hold the nation’s highest office.
“The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how Biden presented himself during the interview,” the complaint reads. “The Committee therefore needs those recordings to evaluate the special counsel’s characterization of the President, which he and White House counsel have vigorously challenged, and the ultimate recommendation that Biden not be prosecuted.”
Source: With information from AP.
