House Republicans to Vote on Holding Attorney General Garland in Contempt for Withholding Hur Tapes

A House panel controlled by Republicans plans to vote on a contempt charge against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for his refusal to release the audio recordings of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden, as reported by the Washington Examiner on Monday.

According to the report, the House Judiciary Committee will hold the vote on May 16.

The panel is proceeding with the contempt charge after Garland ignored a subpoena on two occasions to provide the recordings. The most recent refusal was on April 25, when the DOJ expressed concerns about potential misuse and the lack of a legitimate legislative or impeachment purpose for releasing the recordings.

Republicans argue that the tapes are essential for a complete understanding of the context and nuances that cannot be conveyed through written transcripts alone.

Committee chairmen Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and James Comer, R-Ky., wrote to Garland stating that audio recordings offer a unique medium that captures vocal tone, pace, inflections, verbal nuance, and other subtleties.

The Republicans are eager to listen to the recordings to understand how Hur concluded that Biden should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified documents, based on the belief that Biden would appear as a sympathetic elderly man with memory issues in legal proceedings.

If the full House votes to hold Garland in contempt, it would be the fourth such judgment against a Cabinet member in history, joining former AGs Eric Holder (2012) and Bill Barr (2019) and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (2019).

A contempt charge would lead to a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorneys Office in Washington, D.C., although it is unlikely that Garland would be prosecuted by his own department, as was the case with Holder and Barr.

In a separate development, Jordan sent a letter to Mark Zwonitzer’s attorney, setting a deadline to produce classified documents that the committee subpoenaed on March 22.

Jordan gave the attorney until May 20 to comply with the subpoena or face further action, such as contempt of Congress proceedings.