House committee investigating impeachment will decide next week whether to consider Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt as part of their effort to obtain an audio recording of an interview with President Biden during his classified documents investigation.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) possess a transcript of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, but the Justice Department has not shared the audio files.
The content of the recording is unrelated to their impeachment inquiry into Biden. However, the committees have still sought the audio along with two documents related to Ukraine found in his home.
The Justice Department has twice advised the committees against escalating the issue, and last month stated that the chairs' request for the information was driven by “political purposes that should have no role” in determining which law enforcement files are shared.
Carlos Uriarte, head of legislative affairs for the Justice Department, wrote to Jordan and Comer last month, expressing that “It seems that the more information you receive, the less satisfied you are, and the less justification you have for contempt, the more you rush towards it.”
House Republicans have defended their interest in the audio, stating that the format contains “revealing verbal cues” and that “a subject’s pauses and inflections can provide context or evidence of whether a subject is evasive or suffers from a ‘poor memory.’”
Last month, they wrote, “The Department’s unsupported speculation about the Committees’ motives in insisting that you produce the audio recordings has no bearing on your legal obligation to produce the subpoenaed materials.
If approved, the contempt vote would move from the committee to the full House floor.
Although censuring a sitting Attorney General would be significant, it would likely have little practical impact: contempt votes primarily serve as a referral to the Justice Department, which then determines if there are grounds for contempt of Congress charges.
The upcoming hearing is not the first instance where the two chairs have threatened contempt as part of their impeachment inquiry.
Last summer, the duo was ready to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt over access to the FD-1023 file chronicling an interview with a bureau informant who alleged Biden accepted a bribe while serving as vice president.
The informant has since been arrested on charges linked to fabricating the claim.
