DOJ rejects second GOP demand for Biden-Hur audio recordings

The Justice Department on Thursday refused for the second time to turn over audio recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, rejecting claims from GOP impeachment investigators that the recordings contain information that would help them in their investigation.

The letter renews the specter of possible contempt proceedings for Attorney General Merrick Garland. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) suggested this as a possible response if the audio files were not turned over by Thursday.

“Our cooperation has been extraordinary. The Committees did not respond in kind. It seems that the more information you receive, the less satisfied you are, and the less justification you have for contempt, the more you rush toward it,” wrote Carlos Uriarte, the Justice Department’s chief of legislative affairs, in a letter to Jordan. and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

“The Committees’ inability to identify the need for these audio files based on legislative or impeachment purposes raises concerns about what other purposes they might serve,” he said, noting that the Justice Department has previously questioned whether they were being requested for political purposes. .

“This concern only deepened with the failure of the Committees to identify a legitimate purpose that would be served by the production of these files,” added Uriarte.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) delivers an opening statement during a Food and Drug Administration oversight hearing on Thursday, April 11, 2024. (Greg Nash)

The panels already have a transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur, who analyzed how confidential documents from his time as vice president ended up in his home and another office. Hur’s report was critical of Biden but determined there was not enough evidence to show he broke the law.

The Justice Department argued that sharing the recordings could make the work of law enforcement more difficult and that witnesses might be hesitant to cooperate if recordings of their interviews were turned over to Congress.

Comer and Jordan wrote last week that their impeachment inquiry “will suffer without these audio recordings.”

“Your response to the subpoenas remains inadequate, suggesting that you are withholding records for partisan purposes and to avoid political embarrassment for President Biden,” they wrote.

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The pair said there is more information to be gained from audio recordings: “a unique and invaluable information medium that captures vocal tone, rhythm, inflections, verbal nuances and other idiosyncrasies.”

“The transcript is unable to record these revealing verbal cues,” they wrote.

“For example, a subject’s pauses and inflections can provide context or evidence of whether a subject is evasive or suffers from ‘poor memory’.”

Much of the Justice Department’s rejection of the committees’ request is an indictment of its impeachment investigation overall.

In seeking the audio recordings, the two presidents suggested that Biden’s interview with Hur could in some way be revealing to the impeachment inquiry, suggesting without evidence that some of the documents in question could be related to the review of the business dealings of the your family.

“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.

GOP investigators also suggested the materials could somehow shed light on their search for evidence that Biden may have accepted a bribe.

“The Committees did not explain why the audio of the interviews, of which the Department has already produced transcripts, would address these issues,” Uriarte said.

The DOJ noted that it also arranged for congressional investigators to review two Ukraine-related documents that were among the files found in Biden’s home — but that Comer did not take advantage of the offer.

“The Chairman of the Supervisory Committee has not yet accepted our offer, which we made more than two months ago. However, he has publicly speculated (inaccurately) about its contents,” said Uriarte.

“Certainly, initiating contempt proceedings is no substitute for evidence to support one’s claims,” he wrote.

Updated at 5:15 p.m.