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Politics

DOJ won’t prosecute Merrick Garland for refusing to hand over Biden’s classified docs audio

By
Josh Christenson
Published June 14, 2024
Updated June 14, 2024, 7:08 p.m. ET

Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress because his refusal to turn over audio of President Biden’s interview in his classified documents case “did not constitute a crime,” the Justice Department said Friday.

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe informed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a Friday letter that longstanding policy precluded the attorney general from being charged for contempt of Congress after the White House last month blocked the audio release by asserting Biden’s executive privilege.

“The House disagrees with the assertions in the letter from the Department of Justice, and as Speaker, I will be certifying the contempt reports to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia,” Johnson fired back in a statement Friday evening.

“We will also move to enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal court,” he also revealed. “It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing.

“This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration.”

An internal DOJ memo obtained by the Hill on Wednesday had argued that Garland, 71, would be shielded from any prosecution as a result.

For at least 70 years, federal prosecutors have not charged executive branch officials who flout subpoenas due to the privilege, the 57-page memo states.

Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress
Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress. AP

House Republicans voted 216-207 Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the audio files of Biden’s interview with counsel Robert Hur, with no Democrats favoring the resolution.

Only one Republican, Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, voted against it, saying it “would further politicize our judicial system to score political points.”

Garland is the third attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress after former President Donald Trump’s AG Bill Barr and former President Barack Obama’s AG Eric Holder faced similar threats.

Republicans have held that the audio recordings were altered — pointing to court filings by the Justice Department — while Democrats have dismissed the hunt for the files as a “madcap, wild-goose chase” for purposes of creating an “embarrassing TV attack ad” against Biden.

Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Judicial Watch filed a separate lawsuit for the recordings earlier this year, which referred to “minor inconsistencies” between the transcript and the audio recording.

Congress has already received the transcripts of Hur’s Oct. 8-9 interview with Biden, as well as the January transcript of an interview of ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer by the special counsel’s team.

In February, Hur released a final report on the investigation that found the president had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” — but did not recommend bringing criminal charges.

Joe Biden's classified documents probe report

  • Special counsel Robert Hur determined that President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after leaving office as vice president in 2016.
  • The records kept by Biden included documents on military and foreign policy in Afghanistan as well as other national security and foreign policy issues.
  • Biden kept the classified documents in part to assist with the writing of his memoirs. According to the report, Biden told a ghostwriter in a 2017 conversation that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
  • Despite the findings, Hur’s 388-page report recommended that the president not face charges.
  • The special counsel noted that Biden would likely present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” if he were to face trial.

The 388-page report explained that the decision not to charge the president was in part due to Biden likely being viewed by a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The October transcripts show Biden, 81, forgetting when his son Beau died of brain cancer, when former President Donald Trump was elected and what a fax machine is.

In subsequent testimony to Congress, Hur maintained that the finding “did not exonerate” Biden from wrongdoing — despite claims from the president and Democrats to the contrary.

Garland appointed Hur as special counsel in January 2023 to probe Biden’s retention of sensitive national security files after leaving the Obama White House.

Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and trade adviser Peter Navarro were sentenced to prison earlier this year for similarly ignoring subpoenas from Congress.

Both had invoked claims of executive privilege, which were rejected by the courts.

“The rule of law for thee, but not for me,” said Russell Dye, a spokesman for House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who requested the recordings of the Biden-Hur interview.