Christian Smith
The House Judiciary Committee advanced a measure Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt on a party-line 18-15 vote, a move that Republicans on the House oversight panel are also expected to take later tonight.
A last-minute decision by President Biden to assert executive privilege over audio recordings of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur did not dissuade the Republican Party from proceeding, even as Garland said that those who assert the privilege “cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”
Republicans already have the transcript of Hur’s conversation with Biden, but argue the audio recordings will be more revealing, suggesting the pauses may correspond to Hur’s comment about the president’s cognitive functions showing hesitation in asking questions.
For Democrats, the only reason they are seeking the tapes is so the Republican Party can use them in campaign ads, arguing that they are misusing power just for political gain.
“Transcripts do not capture evidence of behavior,” Rep. Dan Bishop (RN.C.) said at the start of the hearing.
“Transcriptions are often imperfect, especially in conveying the timing of questions and answers and a witness’s disfluencies, or hesitations, among other things. All of this is evidence of behavior.”
The vote came as many Republicans were in New York to show support for former President Trump during his secret trial.
This led the Oversight panel to postpone consideration of the matter until the 8pm vote on Thursday, scrambling a schedule that was supposed to take place at approximately the same time as the Judiciary proceedings.
Approval of the contempt resolution sends it forward for consideration in the House plenary.
However, the measure is largely symbolic, as it acts as a referral to the Department of Justice, which must assess whether the charges are appropriate.
That seemed unlikely long before Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio files, as the DOJ had already refused to share them, arguing that the panels have no need for police files that are unrelated to their investigation.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) nodded to Republicans in the New York trial when commenting on the decision to hold Garland in contempt.
“Republicans on this committee have gone from being the president’s criminal defense firm to essentially becoming an adjunct to the president’s media advertising firm,” he said.
“We are in contempt of the Attorney General of the United States. And for what? Because he will not provide video material for a campaign commercial to this committee on behalf of a president who is a criminal defendant in a secret payment to a porn star in New York, the first of many criminal trials he will face. ”
In the backdrop of the effort to gain access to the tapes was Republicans’ claim that they could be useful to the impeachment investigation and support their allegations of influence peddling. They have argued in previous letters that Biden may have taken confidential documents to help write his memoirs, while also suggesting that the audio files could include evidence that he took steps to benefit his family.
Hur noted that classified information was not referenced in Biden’s book and that personal entries from Biden’s diaries, which also referenced classified information and events, formed the basis for the memoir.
It is also clear from the transcripts that the discussion did not include items relevant to the impeachment investigation.
However, members of the Republican Party claimed that Biden could have kept the documents for personal gain.
“President Biden had strong motivations to do this and ignore the rules to properly handle the confidential information in his notebooks – in fact, he had an $8 million reason to ignore the rules,” said Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), referring to the sum of Biden’s book advance.
But ranking member Jerold Nadler (DN.Y.) responded to that claim.
“There’s just no ‘there’ there. So what do our Republican friends do when an investigation goes wrong? Simply put, they engage in fantasies,” he said.
“The president wants to make it appear that he discovered some irregularity committed by the attorney general. In fact, the Attorney General and the DOJ have been fully responsive to this Committee on all aspects that may be relevant to their long-dead impeachment inquiry.”
The parties also hurled insults at which of their leaders struggle with mental acuity.
While Republicans excerpted phrases from Hur’s report that criticize Biden’s memory, Democrats noted that Trump repeatedly fell asleep at his own trial. They also showed clips of Trump making a series of mistakes, such as referring to Argentina as if he were a person and another clip praising fictional serial killer Hannibal Lector.
But they also criticized their colleagues’ trip to New York.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) joked that he was glad some of his Republican colleagues still attended the hearing.
“I know that the Oversight Committee canceled a hearing that was supposed to take place right now on this matter so that they could attend the president’s trial. I know some members will miss this vote because they want to be at the president’s trial,” he said.
“And I don’t think anything can liven up the phrase ‘Congress doing nothing’ more than missing votes and canceling hearings to go up and be a spectator at the trial of your cult leader.”
At least 10 Republican lawmakers attended the trial, many of them members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), who skipped the Judiciary vote to attend the trial, tweeted a photo of himself afterward in the background behind Trump, echoing his call to the far-right Proud Boys, promising to “step aside and stand by foot”. per.”
