House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that the House will take the contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Merrick Garland to court after the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to pursue charges.
“It is sadly predictable that the Biden administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas, even though the department has aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing,” Johnson said in a statement, referring to two allies of the former -President Trump. , The Associated Press reported. “This is yet another example of the two-tier justice system brought to us by the Biden administration.”
Earlier Friday, the DOJ issued a determination that Garland committed no crime when he failed to meet the demands of House Republicans, who subpoenaed the audio of special counsel Robert Hur’s conversation with President Biden amid the classified documents investigation of the president.
CNN reported that Johnson said he would “certify the contempt records to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia” and that he would act to “enforce Attorney General Garland’s subpoena in federal court.”
The news comes after House Republicans voted earlier this week to hold Garland in contempt of Congress after the DOJ refused to turn over the audio. Republicans already have a transcript of the conversation and Biden did not discuss anything relevant to the GOP impeachment investigation, according to the department.
In a statement after the vote, Garland said it was “deeply disappointing” that the House turned “Congressional authority into a partisan weapon.”
Friday’s DOJ determination aligns with a memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel that states Biden’s claim of executive privilege over the tapes protects the attorney general from being sued.
The department noted that it has declined to prosecute Attorney General Bill Barr, who was held in contempt in 2019. House Democrats voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to provide documents related to an investigation into Trump, according to the AP.
The Justice Department also did not prosecute Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, after he was held in contempt for failing to cooperate with the House investigative panel into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. .
However, Navarro and Bannon were sued for contempt of Congress for defying related January 6 subpoenas. Navarro has been in prison since March and Bannon will report to federal prison in the coming weeks.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
