Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have threatened to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress if he does not comply with their requests to hand over pertinent content from special counsel Robert Hur's investigation into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.
In a letter to Garland on Monday, Comer and Jordan, chairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Judiciary Committee, respectively, claim the Department of Justice "continues to withhold additional material responsive to the committees' subpoenas," specifically audio recordings of Hur's interviews with Biden and a transcript and audio recordings of Hur's interviews with Biden's ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.
Comer and Jordan subpoenaed the material Feb. 27 as part of the impeachment inquiry into alleged influence peddling and other criminal activity involving Biden and members of his family. They gave the DOJ until March 7 to produce the "narrow and specific set of material" requested.
Instead, they claim the DOJ returned "an insufficient production" that only included letters exchanged between Biden's legal counsel and the DOJ, along with an offer to privately review two classified documents.
The lawmakers then wrote to Garland on March 9 that the material provided was insufficient and gave Garland a March 11 deadline because Hur was scheduled to publicly testify in front of the Judiciary Committee on March 12. The DOJ did not comply with the deadline, the lawmakers wrote, "and instead informed committee staff that an 'interagency review' for classified and confidential information was still pending."
They wrote that two hours before Hur's testimony, the DOJ produced "two redacted transcripts" of Hur's interviews with Biden but did not produce the audio recordings requested. They expressed frustration that before Hur's testimony, media outlets were given transcripts of Hur's interviews with Biden "before they were produced to the Committees, despite the [DOJ's] representation that it had only completed the 'interagency review' of the transcripts the morning of March 12 shortly before it produced the transcripts to the committees."
"Because the [DOJ] and the White House were presumably the only two entities with copies of the transcripts before the committees received them, we can only assume that, for political purposes, the [DOJ] and White House provided the transcripts to news outlets before the [DOJ] completed its 'interagency review' process," the lawmakers wrote. "If that is not the case, we can only assume that the [DOJ] misled the committees about the timing of its completion of such process.
"The [Feb. 27] subpoenas create a legal obligation on you to produce this material. Accordingly, the committees expect you to produce all responsive materials no later than [noon, April 8]. If you fail to do so, the committees will consider taking further action, such as the invocation of contempt of Congress proceedings."
In an email to Newsmax, a DOJ spokeswoman wrote: "The Department has been extraordinarily transparent with Congress. The Attorney General released Mr. Hur's report to Congress and made no redactions or changes, the Department provided documents to Congress including a copy of the President's interview transcript, and Mr. Hur testified before Congress for more than five hours about his investigation. Given the Department's ongoing and extensive cooperation, we hope they will reconsider this unnecessary escalation."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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