House Republicans move forward with bid to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress

House Republicans have moved forward with an attempt to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.

On Thursday, the judiciary committee voted along party lines that the panel would recommend that the full House of Representatives hold Mr Garland in contempt.

The Oversight Committee looks set to take the same measure on Thursday night, according to Politico.

A majority of the full House must then vote for the measure before it can be handed to a US attorney. This means that several vulnerable Republican moderates in seats they may lose in the autumn must vote for a measure even as they have shared concerns about their party’s growing battle with the Department of Justice.

The House Republicans made the move to recommend that the full House hold Mr Garland in contempt after the Department of Justice defied subpoenas from the House GOP demanding audio of an interview with President Joe Biden conducted by then-Special Counsel Robert Hur.

The White House told Republicans in the House on Thursday morning that Mr Biden had decided to utilize executive privilege over the audio, which essentially removes the possibility of criminal prosecution against Mr Garland for not complying with the subpoenas.

But the Republicans chose to push ahead and recommend that the attorney general be held in contempt anyway in a largely symbolic move. The lawmakers have not ruled out a lawsuit in another attempt to get the recordings.

The Hur investigation into Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents has now been dragged into the quagmire that is the Republican impeachment inquiry into the president, which has so far mostly focused on his family’s foreign business dealings but which has failed to find any evidence of