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Jimmy Williams
The Justice Department announced Friday that it will not prosecute Attorney General Merrick B. Garland after the House held him in contempt of Congress earlier this week due to a subpoena dispute.
House Republicans, who passed the contempt measure almost entirely along party lines, accused the Justice Department of refusing to release audio recordings of former special counsel Robert K. Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden. These recordings were subpoenaed by both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
In a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, a Justice Department official stated that the department “has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime.”
Carlos Felipe Uriarte, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs, wrote, “And accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General.”
The interview in question was part of an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified materials. While a transcript of the interview has been released, Biden invoked executive privilege over the audio last month.
The Justice Department cited this executive privilege in their letter. Uriarte explained, “The longstanding position of the Department is that we will not prosecute an official for contempt of Congress for declining to provide subpoenaed information subject to a presidential assertion of executive privilege.”
Garland is now the third sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress, following Eric Holder during the Obama administration and William Barr during the Trump administration. The Justice Department did not pursue criminal charges against either Holder or Barr, as noted by Uriarte.
House Republicans contended that the transcripts of Biden’s interview do not adequately capture the president’s tone and nonverbal cues, such as pauses or his pace of delivery. They argued that the audio is necessary to properly oversee the special counsel’s decision not to charge Biden.
The contempt vote followed the issuance of subpoenas by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees to obtain audio recordings of Hur’s interviews with the president and a ghostwriter who worked with Biden.
Uriarte mentioned in his letter that the Justice Department provided Hur’s report “without any additional redactions” and facilitated his congressional testimony.
After the House vote on Wednesday, Garland criticized the contempt move, stating, “It is deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon.”
