The Justice Department on Thursday informed House Republicans that President Joe Biden has formally asserted executive privilege over the audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur, a move that DOJ says effectively shields Attorney General Merrick Garland from any criminal exposure as the Republican lawmakers move toward trying to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee was meeting Thursday morning to move forward on a resolution recommending a full House contempt vote against Garland.
The Justice Department had previously provided a transcript of Biden’s interview to House Republicans.
Citing what it describes as as “extraordinary” cooperation and “good faith” efforts to provide Republicans will all relevant materials from Hur’s investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents while out of office, the department argued disclosing the audio would set an untenable precedent where high-profile figures under criminal scrutiny would second-guess cooperating with the government in the future.
“The Attorney General must draw a line that safeguards the Department from improper political influence and protects our principles, our law enforcement work, and the people who carry out that work independently, without fear or favor,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote in the letter. “The Committees seek to hold the Attorney General in contempt not for failing in his duties, but for upholding them.”
AG Merrick Garland speaks to reporters outside his office, May 16, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
C-SPAN
Uriarte further detailed in his letter how the department previously made available the transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur, and argued Republicans have failed to provide any reason that the audio would add further value to their efforts to investigate Biden.
In explaining the move to have Biden formally assert executive privilege over the remaining materials sought by Republicans — which includes the audio of the interview with Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer — Uriarte pointed to longstanding DOJ policy “held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the President’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”
“With the information you now have, the Committees ought not to proceed with contempt and should instead avoid unnecessary and unwarranted conflict,” Uriarte said.
In rare public comments Thursday morning, speaking to reporters outside his office, Garland accused House Republicans of mounting a series of “unprecedented” and “unfounded” attacks on the Justice Department, as he defended Biden’s decision to assert executive privilege over the audio of his interview with Hur.
“We have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the committees get responses to their legitimate requests, but this is not one,” Garland said. “To the contrary, this is one that would harm or ability in the future to successfully pursue sensitive investigations.”
He argued the efforts by House Republicans to hold him in contempt were part of a broader pattern of attacks that has resorted in widespread distrust and threats against the Justice Department.
“There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly, unfounded attacks on the Justice Department,” Garland said. “This effort to use contempt as an as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just the most recent. The effort to threaten to defund our investigations and the way in which there are contributions to an atmosphere that puts our agents and prosecutors at risk — these are wrong.”
Garland added, “Look, the only thing I can do is continue to do the right thing. I will protect this building and its people.”
President Joe Biden speaks during brief remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, May 2, 2024.
Nathan Howard/Reuters, FILE
The GOP-led House Oversight Committee was set to meet later Thursday to also take up a contempt resolution.
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Chairman James Comer criticized Biden for asserting executive privilege over the audio of his interview — claiming in a statement “it’s a five alarm fire at the White House,” adding that it “changes nothing.”
“Clearly President Biden and his advisors fear releasing the audio recordings of his interview because it will again reaffirm to the American people that President Biden’s mental state is in decline,” Comer said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
“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 words, a quote elderly man with a poor memory and thus shouldn’t be charged,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a GOP leadership press conference Thursday morning, shortly after the White House and DOJ sent letters to House Republicans.
Johnson said the audio recordings “obviously confirm what 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.”
Hur’s yearlong probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents ended with no criminal charges being recommended because the evidence wasn’t sufficient to support a conviction. However, the 388-page report Hur released created a political firestorm as the special counsel described Biden as someone who could appeal to a jury as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
White House Counsel Ed Siskel also wrote a letter to Comer House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan explaining the decision to assert executive privilege over the recordings.
In it, Siskel argued Biden has a responsibility to protect the executive branch’s law enforcement agencies from “undue partisan interference.”
“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,” Siskel wrote.
ABC News’ Mary Bruce, Lauren Peller and Will Steakin contributed to this report.
