By Steve Neavling
The Justice Department notified House Republicans on Monday that it won’t turn over an audio recording of President Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur, even as the GOP threatens to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt, Reuters reports.
Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said the DOJ has already satisfied the demands of a congressional subpoena by turning over plenty of information, including some transcribed interviews from Hur’s investigation and copies of certain classified records.
“The Committees have responded with escalation and threats of criminal contempt,” he wrote in a letter to House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer. “We urge the Committees to avoid conflict rather than seek it.”
Comer responded that the House will not be deterred in seeking the additional information, including the audio, and that he plans to soon address the DOJ’s letter.
“The American people demand transparency from their leaders, not obstruction,” Comer said in a statement.
House Republicans have threatened to hold Garland in contempt if the records aren’t disclosed.
In the DOJ letter, Uriarte said the department has already turned over “an extraordinary amount of information” related to the investigation.
In February, Hur announced that he was not going to charge Biden for knowingly taking classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017. In the report, Hur said the president was cooperative and that it would be difficult to convict an elderly man with a “poor memory.”
