House votes to hold Attorney General Garland in contempt
The Republican-led House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, escalating a tug-of-war over audiotapes of President Biden’s interview with a special prosecutor.
That federal criminal investigation ended this year with no charges against Biden for mishandling classified information, in part because special counsel Robert Hur concluded a jury would likely view the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
Garland becomes the third Attorney General to face reprimand by the House for defying a congressional subpoena. But the consequences are likely to end there, since President Biden has asserted executive privilege over the tapes, giving Garland legal protection from any further investigation.
Democrats pointed out that Jordan, who is a chief advocate of holding Garland in contempt, declined to cooperate with the House January 6 committee's investigation in 2022. He publicly admitted that he was discussing a plan to contest the electoral votes in several states with the Trump White House. Jordan told NPR that he never told the committee he wouldn't appear and maintained he negotiated with it. "This is different — Merrick Garland says you ain't getting it," referring to the audiotapes, adding, "There's no negotiating whatsoever."
He and other House Republicans argued Tuesday that the Justice Department waived privilege over withholding the tapes once it gave the committees the transcripts of the interviews with Biden.
Democrats and the Justice Department reject the premise of the contempt proceedings
The attorney general has said he engaged in extraordinary accommodation with lawmakers. Special counsel Hur provided five hours of congressional testimony about his findings. And the Justice Department turned over written transcripts of Biden's interview, as well as correspondence with lawyers for Biden and the White House.
Garland sought to cast the contempt proceedings as part of a series of attacks against the Justice Department and its career employees by partisans intent on making political points.
"Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy," Garland wrote in an opinion piece this week. "They are normal. But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country."
Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, furthered that argument Tuesday in a hearing on the contempt measure.
"This isn't really about a policy disagreement with the DOJ. This is about feeding the MAGA base after 18 months of investigation that have produced failure after failure," Nadler said.
Nadler also maintained that the audiotapes of the president could be easily manipulated by House Republicans, pointing to a case of a witness who appeared before the panel last year that resulted in threats.
Asked whether Democrats will be unified against the contempt resolution, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, told NPR that he expected the "overwhelming majority" of Democrats to vote no. He called the effort "frivolous, unconscionable, unnecessary and un-American."
Republicans say Garland must provide more information
But leaders of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees said they had legitimate reasons to demand the tapes of Biden's interview, reasoning that it could help advance a stalled impeachment probe against Biden and assess the need for new legislation to protect sensitive or classified materials.
The tapes also would help make their case that Biden, 81, is losing his faculties, a pillar of the Republican case against Biden in the 2024 presidential election.
"If the attorney general wants to defy Congress and not produce the audio recordings, he will face consequences for those actions," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., declared recently.
Biden's decision to invoke executive privilege not only insulates his attorney general from a criminal contempt probe but also prevents the audio from appearing in campaign ads.
"Quite frankly, the White House has every reason to be concerned about the audio being released, because it could be chopped up and used in various ways in a political campaign in an election year to make the president look and sound bad," George Mason University political scientist Mark Rozell told NPR.
The Heritage Foundation and several media organizations are suing for access to those tapes under the Freedom of Information Act, but it's not clear they will meet with success before the November election.
Transcript
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The House is set to vote today on a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Republican lawmakers demanded that the Justice Department turn over audiotapes of an interview that prosecutors conducted with President Biden. Garland said the administration doesn't have to do that, that it would violate the separation of powers between the president and Congress.
SCHMITZ: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson has been following this dispute, and she's on the line now to talk more about it. Hey, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Rob.
SCHMITZ: Carrie, why do Republicans want these tapes so much?
JOHNSON: Republicans say they want these tapes because they're considering the possible impeachment of President Biden and because they're considering an update to laws that cover how sensitive and classified information is handled. But really there could be another explanation, too - that the tapes would make Biden look and sound bad.
Remember, prosecutors decided to close this investigation of how classified information came to be found at the home of President Biden with no charges, in part because they said jurors could conclude Biden was a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Here's House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES COMER: If the attorney general chooses to divide Congress and not produce the audio recordings, he must face the consequences of his actions.
SCHMITZ: The attorney general has not turned over those tapes. So what are the consequences going to be?
JOHNSON: No one wants to be found in contempt of Congress, especially not Merrick Garland, who spent a couple of decades as a federal judge before his current job. But that reprimand doesn't have quite the sting it used to. I've now covered two other attorneys general who were held in contempt, Eric Holder and Bill Barr. And it's important to note Garland has some legal protection here. Last month, President Biden asserted executive privilege over these tapes, so Garland won't be prosecuted for refusing to hand them over, not that the U.S. attorney in D.C. would even want to pursue a prosecution against Garland, who happens to be his boss.
SCHMITZ: So, Carrie, what is the Justice Department saying about this controversy?
JOHNSON: You know, the attorney general tends to be a guy who does his talking on paper or in courtrooms. But over the past few weeks, Merrick Garland has really pushed back. Here's what he had to say recently about this tapes dispute.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MERRICK GARLAND: We have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the committees get responses to their legitimate requests, but this is not one. To the contrary, this is one that would harm our ability in the future to successfully pursue sensitive investigations.
JOHNSON: Garland says DOJ has already turned over written transcripts of the same interviews the Republicans want with the special prosecutor and that handing over audio could really make it harder for future prosecutors to interview people in the White House. He's also blasting attacks on the Justice Department, saying people are making false claims about DOJ being political when it's really the critics who are trying to put prosecutors in the middle of politics here.
The attorney general took the unusual step of writing an opinion piece in The Washington Post this week. There, he said disagreements about politics are totally normal, but lying and conspiracy theories are really not.
SCHMITZ: So, Carrie, will we, the public, get to hear these audiotapes before the election?
JOHNSON: The odds are low. The Biden administration does not want to give them up. Media groups and conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have sued to get access to the tapes, but the case is taking a long time to get through the court system. Right now it seems unlikely the tapes would be released in time for them to show up in campaign ads or Republican fundraising pitches before the presidential election in November.
SCHMITZ: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson. Thank you.
JOHNSON: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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