US House declares Justice Secretary in contempt

The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to charge Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview, the latest and strongest rebuke from Republicans to the Justice Department in full presidential campaign.

The 216-207 vote came along party lines, with Republicans rallying behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members. Only one Republican, Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, voted against it.

Garland said in a statement Wednesday night: “It is deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon. “Today’s vote ignores the constitutional separation of powers, the Justice Department’s need to protect its investigations, and the substantial amount of information we have provided to the Committees.”

Republicans have denounced criminal cases against former President Donald Trump, their presumptive presidential candidate, while offering broad assertions against what they see as corruption in President Biden’s administration.

Republicans were enraged when special counsel Robert Hur refused to prosecute Biden for his handling of classified documents and quickly launched an investigation. Republican lawmakers — led by Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer — sent a subpoena for audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden in the spring. The Department of Justice delivered some documents, but not the audio of the interview with the president.

If the motion to convict Garland is successful, he will be the third attorney general to be declared in contempt of Congress in American history. But the Justice Department — of which Garland is in charge — is unlikely to prosecute him. The White House’s decision to invoke executive privilege over the audio, preventing its release to Congress, makes it extremely difficult to bring a criminal case against Garland.

The White House has repeatedly condemned Republicans for trying to hold Garland in contempt, and has rejected the efforts for obtaining the audio as purely political.

Garland has defended the Justice Department, saying officials have gone to great lengths to provide information to legislative committees about the Hur investigation, including the transcript of the interview with Biden.

“There have been a series of unprecedented and, frankly, baseless attacks on the Department of Justice,” Garland said at a news conference last month. “This request, this effort to use a contempt plea as a method to obtain sensitive files of ours is just the latest.”

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