The GOP’s plan to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland accountable for contempt of Congress seeks to chain together two seemingly unrelated investigations — Special Counsel Robert Hur’s review of President Biden’s handling of confidential records and his own impeachment investigation .
The back-to-back contempt hearings set for Thursday before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees come after both requested an audio recording of Biden’s interview with Hur. The panels already have the transcript of this interview.
Each will consider resolutions that accuse Garland of having “impeded” supervision of Hur and also of having “impeded the Committees’ impeachment inquiry.”
In doing so, Republicans are advancing a new allegation for their impeachment investigation of Biden: that the president intentionally kept confidential documents to help write his memoirs, possibly concealing other evidence of aid to his family’s business ventures. in the process.
“He had a motive, you know, an $8 million motive,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told The Hill last week, nodding to the book’s advancement from Biden when asked about how the Hur investigation intertwined with his impeachment investigation.
This conclusion conflicts with Hur’s report, which, while highly critical of Biden, determined that there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that the president intentionally kept records found in his office and home.
Biden’s book, he wrote, “is not known to contain classified information.”
Republicans also argue they need the audio for a broader investigation into whether Biden’s family was involved in influence peddling. They say it could clarify whether Biden took steps to limit the prosecution of his son or whether he sought to limit the scope of the questions he was asked.
The suggestions are far removed from Hur’s work, and the transcript of both days’ interviews makes it clear that these topics were not discussed.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called the contempt resolution a “half-hearted coda” that attempts to “blame Attorney General Merrick Garland for his own prolonged comedy of errors.” .
“The attorney general gave Republicans the information they asked for, and it is deliciously absurd to suggest that hearing the president’s words instead of just reading them will suddenly reveal the high-crime and misdemeanor mystery that Republicans have failed to identify since 2023.” , Raksin said in a statement to The Hill.
“Will this hopeless treasure hunt ever end? Maybe the Republicans should play the Beatles White Album backwards and the impeachable offense will arise!”
The Justice Department has refused to turn over the audio, suggesting that Republicans are seeking it solely for political purposes and that giving in to their demands risks reducing their ability to secure future interviews.
But the department also offered a point-by-point rebuttal to the Republican Party.
“Nothing in the interview transcripts the department has already produced speaks to or supports the committees’ speculations on this point, and nothing in the audio archive of the same conversations would either,” Carlos Uriarte, head of the DOJ’s legislative affairs office, has repeatedly written to both presidents in an 11-page letter last month.
The Republicans’ link between Hur’s investigation and their own follows the arrest of a former FBI informant who accused Biden of accepting a bribe, an allegation underlying the GOP investigation. The informant has since been accused of fabricating the allegation.
“As part of the committees’ investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden, the committees sought information regarding President Biden’s mishandling of classified information,” the House Judiciary Committee wrote in its contempt report.
“The committees sought this information to determine whether President Biden intentionally withheld confidential information and documents relating to, among other places, Ukraine, to help his family business or to enrich his family.”
The appendix cataloging documents found in Biden’s home and office lists just two documents related to Ukraine, where the president’s son once sat on the board of an energy company.
In one of them, a document on discussion points for a call with the then Prime Minister of Ukraine, Biden instructs his team to keep a transcript of the conversation. On the call itself, Hur writes, “the two exchanged pleasantries and the prime minister praised Mr. Biden for his December 9, 2015 speech to Ukraine’s parliament. They did not engage in a substantive political discussion.”
Republicans said Biden’s action “raises questions about whether he took them purposefully when he left office in order to benefit his family.”
Uriarte’s letter from last month notes that despite Republicans’ interest in reviewing Ukraine’s documents, Comer “has not yet accepted our offer, which we made more than two months ago. However, he has publicly speculated (inaccurately) about their contents.”
Hur’s report also casts doubt on GOP claims that Biden was motivated to keep confidential records for his book.
A note Biden wrote to himself lists “profit – retirement” as his reason for writing the book.
Hur suggests that Biden’s interest in Afghanistan-related documents had more to do with his opposition to the troop surge and a desire to show that “his critics were wrong.”
Hur wrote that the documents “played no role” in Biden’s book “Promise Me, Dad,” noting that it is primarily about Biden struggling with his son’s illness and death.
“There is no reason to believe that Mr. Biden intended to discuss the 2009 Afghanistan troop debate in his book,” Hur ruled.
Hur noted that one of the most significant resources for Biden’s books was his personal notebooks, something the president considered similar to a diary that former presidents were allowed to keep.
Biden had strong motivations for keeping the notebooks, Hur said, noting that the president consulted them “liberally” in crafting his book. While they reference confidential information and discussions and may have required storage in a secure facility, they were also personal.
“Sir. Biden’s notebooks included harrowing passages about his son’s death and other highly personal materials,” Hur wrote.
“He believed he did not need to send what he considered to be his personal diary to be stored in a government facility.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
