The Justice Department says Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress after refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified documents case because his actions “did not constitute a crime.”
It’s a little more complicated than that. The DoJ released the full transcript of all the interviews between the Special Counsel and President Biden. What’s at issue now is that Republicans also want the audio tapes of all those interviews.
The DoJ is pushing back, and saying that Congress has all the info they need already with the full transcript, and they dont need the audio. The only purpose for releasing the audio is to use sound bites in Republican campaign ads.
I actually wish Biden never claimed executive privilege on it, because there is nothing on that tape we don’t know. It’s all in the transcript. Claiming privilege makes it look like there’s secrets in it.
i also wish that the DoJ would have trotted out the 'No Legitimate Legislative Purpose" line that Barr did when he defied his subpoena. Because that is technically correct now: there is nothing to learn that we don’t already know from the transcript.
Thank you for providing that context. Good to know the situation is even dumber than I thought.