House GOP files lawsuit to force Garland to hand over audio of Biden-Hur interview

The House Judiciary Committee filed suit Monday to force Attorney General Merrick Garland to turn over audiotapes of President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur about his handling of classified documents.

It’s the latest move by top House Republicans in their push to gain access to the tapes, following a vote to hold Garland liable for contempt of Congress earlier this month for failing to comply with his subpoena on the matter. The Justice Department later declined to charge Garland with contempt.

The suit It’s also a way for Republicans to further highlight the 81-year-old president’s age and mental sharpness, a topic that dominated political discussion over the weekend in light of Biden’s poor performance in a presidential debate against former President Trump . In explaining his decision not to press charges against Biden, Hur said a jury would likely find Biden to be an “elderly man with a poor memory” and pointed to problems with Biden’s memory in the interview.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), however, suggested that Biden’s memory problems are not the main reason to seek the tapes, but rather that Republicans want to ensure that the interview transcript — that they already have – be precise.

“We are not trying to embarrass the president. We’re trying to get to the facts,” Johnson said at a news conference Friday. “That said, we will be as aggressive as we can and use every tool in our arsenal to ensure that the evidence the House is entitled to is turned over.”

Biden claimed executive privilege over the tapes, which the Justice Department determined protects Garland from any consequences for not turning them over.

Republicans argue that Biden’s claim of executive privilege over the tapes is not valid because he has already turned over the transcript of the conversation.

“Any privilege that might have applied to President Biden’s interview with the Special Counsel was waived when the Executive Branch released a transcript of that interview to the press and produced that transcript to the Committee,” the lawsuit states.

A Justice Department spokesperson said they are “reviewing the lawsuit and will respond in court at the appropriate time.”

The lawsuit also takes to court the GOP’s arguments that they need the tape to continue their impeachment investigation, likely triggering greater scrutiny of the allegations they have struggled to support.

“The scope of the investigation includes whether President Biden abused his position of public trust to enrich himself or his family, including in connection with his family’s business dealings with foreign parties,” the Republicans wrote in the filing.

The transcript of the conversation makes clear that none of the items the Republican Party said it wanted to consider in previous letters were discussed.

“Nothing in the interview transcripts that the Department has already produced speaks to or supports the Committees’ speculation on this point, and nothing in the audio archive of the same conversations would either. Nothing in Special Counsel Hur’s report or his testimony indicates any support for this speculation,” the DOJ wrote in an April letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), rejecting his demands for the tape.

Some Republican members have expressed support for a much more dramatic strategy to get Garland to quash the Biden-Hur tapes: hold Garland in “inherent contempt” and instruct the House sergeant-at-arms to detain Garland until he does so.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) is leading the push to use inherent contempt, which hasn’t been used in nearly 100 years. But although she promised to force a vote on her resolution to hold Garland for inherent contempt, she declined to do so last week, citing GOP turnout problems and telling The Hill that she would introduce a new inherent contempt resolution that would have the support of the Speaker.

Luna on Friday presented a new resolution of inherent contemptthat, instead of instructing the Sergeant at Arms to take Garland into custody, he would fine Garland $10,000 a day until he complied with the House GOP subpoena.

Johnson has not yet stated his support for any inherent contempt resolution.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story