Despite the fact that Republicans in the House of Representatives have threatened to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland for criminal contempt, the Department of Justice has consistently failed to provide Congress with the audio tapes of the interviews that Special Counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Joe Biden.
CNN has gotten a letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) claiming that it will not meet the deadline that was set by Republicans for the submission of the audio tapes. The document was obtained by CNN. The department has made available to the committees all of the transcripts of the interviews that they sought as part of Hur’s inquiry into Biden’s handling of sensitive documents. This includes the transcripts of interviews that were conducted with the president and his ghostwriter, which were delivered on Monday.
It is still unclear whether House Republicans would follow through on their pledge to hold Garland, a prominent target of the Republican Party, in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena in its entirety. CNN has established communication with the relevant committees in order to solicit their feedback.
Representative James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, voiced his disappointment of the Department of Justice’s failure to produce the audio tapes. However, he did not provide any indication as to whether or not Republicans in the House would move forward with the contempt indictment of Attorney General Garland.
“The Biden Administration lacks the authority to decide what Congress requires or does not require for its supervision of the executive branch,” Comer stated in response to the Department of Justice’s assertion that House Republicans do not require the audio tapes because they possess the transcripts of the interviews. Comer makes this statement in response to the DOJ’s assertion.
Comer has stated that his committee will continue to work together with the House Judiciary Committee in order to address this matter. He has stated, “We will provide a timely response to the Justice Department.”
“We implore the Committees to refrain from engaging in confrontation and instead strive to avoid it,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte said in a letter that was delivered to the committees. “We strongly urge the Committees to avoid confrontation.” According to Uriarte, the department has demonstrated that it has completely complied with the standards.
“The productions we have made regarding each of the four subpoena items have fulfilled or surpassed the committee’s specified informational requirements,” he explained to reporters.
Uriarte stated that the Republicans did not have a legislative justification for seeking the audio tapes because they already had the transcripts in their possession to begin with. Additionally, Uriarte accused Republicans of unnecessarily escalating the situation solely for the sake of developing a sense of discord.
“The Department is concerned that the committees’ persistent request for information that duplicates what we have already provided – specifically, what the President and Mr. Hur’s team stated during the interview – suggests that the committees’ intentions may not be to obtain information for legitimate oversight or investigative purposes, but rather to serve political agendas that should not influence the handling of law enforcement files,” Uriarte stated in his letter.
In addition, Uriarte argued that the dissemination of the audio tapes would make it more difficult to conduct investigations in the future. “Producing the audio files would increase the probability that future prosecutors will not be able to obtain this level of cooperation,” he explained to reporters.
“They may encounter greater difficulty in obtaining consent for an interview,” said Uriarte in conclusion. “Diminishing the likelihood of future collaboration with prosecutors and investigators is clearly not in the best interest of the public.”