By Steve Neavling
The U.S. House on Thursday turned down an unusual attempt to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in “inherent contempt” after a small group of Republicans helped defeat the resolution.
Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, rejected the measure on a 201-204 vote, The New York Times reports.
The effort, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., would have required Garland and the Justice Department to pay fines of $10,000 per day until they released audio recordings of former special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden.
The Republicans who opposed the measure were John Duarte and Tom McClintock, of California, and David Joyce and Michael R. Turner, of Ohio.
The Justice Department previously complied with some of the House Republicans’ orders to disclose information related to Hur’s investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents. But the DOJ declined to release the audio.
On the final day to comply, the White House invoked executive privilege and blocked the release of the audio, saying Republicans only wanted the recordings for political purposes.
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 painted a harsh picture of the president as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
Last month, the House voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas to turn over the audio recording.
