House Tees Up Vote On Using Its Own Contempt Power Against Merrick Garland

Cheered on by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, House Republicans set up a vote, likely for Thursday, on finding U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, using a power lawmakers have not exercised since the 1930s.

The move marks an escalation by Republicans in the fight with Garland to get a copy of the audio recording of an interview with President Joe Biden in the investigation of sensitive government documents he retained after leaving the White House as vice president.

In the report by special counsel Robert Hur that rejected prosecuting Biden, Hur described the president as “an elderly man with poor memory.” Republicans say they want the audio so they can see if it matches the transcript provided to them in which Biden asked for confirmation on what year his son Beau had died.

Though Republicans had sought the audio before the June 27 presidential debate, at which Biden sometimes had trouble organizing his thoughts and fielding questions, its importance has risen since then.

“He will very likely sound exactly on that tape as he did on the stage last night, and that’s embarrassing to the president,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on June 28. “We’re sorry about that. We’re not trying to embarrass the president. We’re trying to get down to the facts.”

Democrats doubt that rationale and point to the transcript’s accuracy as having already been vouched for.

When Garland refused to turn over the audio, House Republicans sued in federal court . Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a firebrand first-termer, pushed the party to instead use the so-called “inherent contempt” of Congress authority to punish Garland for refusing to cooperate.

Unlike conventional criminal