House rejects GOP effort to fine Attorney General Garland for refusal to turn over Biden audio

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House rejected a GOP effort Thursday to fine Attorney General Merrick Garland $10,000 a day until he turns over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified documents case as a handful of Republicans resisted taking an aggressive step against a sitting Cabinet official.

Even if the resolution — titled inherent contempt — had passed, it was unclear how the fine would be enforced as the dispute over the tape of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur is now playing out in court.

The House voted 204-210, with four Republicans joining all Democrats, to halt a Republican resolution that would have imposed the fine, effectively rebuffing the latest effort by GOP lawmakers to assert its enforcement powers — weeks after Biden asserted executive privilege to block the release of the recording.

“This is not a decision that we have reached lightly but the actions of the attorney general cannot be ignored,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., the resolution’s lead sponsors, said during debate Wednesday. “No one is above the law.”

The House earlier this year made Garland the third attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department said Garland would not be prosecuted, citing the agency’s “longstanding position and uniform practice” to not prosecute officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.

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