Justice Department officials and White House counsel announced Thursday that President Biden has asserted executive privilege to deny House Republicans access to records of meetings with the special counsel investigating the handling of government documents.
The move comes if House Republicans' efforts to hold Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in contempt for refusing to hand over audio of Mr. Biden's conversations with special counsel Robert K. It is intended to protect against prosecution. A nearly complete transcript of the interview was made public.
The move is sure to anger former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, but is in line with practice by the Trump administration and his predecessor, President Barack Obama. When the Justice Department did not pursue contempt charges against Garland's two predecessors, Democrat Eric H. Holder Jr. in 2012 and Republican William P. Barr in 2020, He chose not to press charges, citing executive privilege.
“It has been the long-standing position of the executive branch of administrations of both parties that officials asserting claims of presidential executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress,” said Carlos F. Uriarte, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs. Stated. said in a letter to Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, who chairs the House Oversight Committee.
Uriarte cited the House of Representatives' decision to discontinue contempt proceedings in 2008 when President George W. Bush claimed executive privilege after being subpoenaed by Vice President Dick Cheney. He urged the council to withdraw the contempt resolution.
White House Counsel Edward N. Siskel wrote in a letter to Mr. Jordan and Mr. “It probably reveals your purpose, which is to use it for political purposes.” Comer on Thursday cited Trump's efforts to pressure department officials during his presidency.
“It is inappropriate for the executive branch to request such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement materials because they want to manipulate the information for potential political gain,” he said. added.
In a letter to the president, Garland said Huh's interviews with the president and his ghostwriter were “within executive privilege.”
He said their extradition would “increase an unacceptable risk” of disrupting “similar high-profile criminal investigations, especially those in which the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is critical.”
The move came hours before the Judiciary and Oversight Committees planned to hold a committee meeting against Garland after he refused a subpoena for the audio recordings.
The contempt resolution must be voted on in the House of Representatives. Congressional aides say approval is not certain, given the narrow Republican majority and divisions within the party.
Even if this bill were to pass, it would be little more than a symbolic gesture. The Biden administration will almost certainly decline to prosecute.
The move is part of a broader effort by Republican lawmakers to scrutinize Biden administration officials after they failed to impeach Biden on behalf of Trump, who has been impeached twice and indicted four times.
Republicans are keen to release the recording, which could serve as damaging evidence of Mr. Hsu's description of the president as an “old man with a bad memory” and could be valuable material for Mr. Trump's campaign.
Their alternative, the contempt vote, aims to embarrass Garland with a sharp blow to the person Trump blames for the “witch hunt.”
Huh, a former Justice Department official in the Trump administration, dropped a political bombshell in February at the height of the 2024 election campaign, releasing a nearly 400-page final report summarizing his investigation. The document is an excruciatingly detailed assessment of Mr. Biden's false memories and obscures the conclusion that Mr. Biden, unlike Mr. Trump, should not face criminal charges.
Republican claims about the release of the recordings, included in a 12-page resolution being considered Thursday, are a mix of motive and investigation.
Republicans argue the audio is needed to resolve potential discrepancies between transcripts and recordings. At various points, they said it could help enact changes to future special counsel investigations or allow them to get to the bottom of the family's business dealings, even if they didn't involve Trump. It said it would provide “unique and important information.” Har's research.
But they mostly suggest that reading Biden's words isn't as good as hearing them.
Commission staff wrote that the recordings “do not reflect important linguistic context, such as tone and tenor, and nonverbal context, such as pauses and pacing of spoken words.”
Garland and other department officials have previously indicated they would try to defuse the conflict by reaching compromises with the House. Not this time.
In a sharply worded letter sent to Jordan and Comer earlier this month, Garland's aides said handing over the audio would set a dangerous precedent and allow the Legislature to improperly influence the executive branch's law enforcement functions. He argued that it would be empowering.
“It would be deeply appalling if a decision to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation required an individual to submit to public questioning by a politician,” Uriarte wrote.
Rep. Glenn F. Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, accused Mr. Jordan of abusing his power and jeopardizing future legislative oversight efforts.
“It's purely political,” he said. “The only reason they want to record it is because they want to use the clip in something like a campaign ad, which clearly does not meet the legislative purpose standard set by the Supreme Court for Congressional oversight.”
charlie savage Contributed to the report.