House to vote on holding Attorney General Garland in contempt over Biden audio

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress.

At issue is Garland's failure to hand over audio of special counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden about his handling of classified documents. Republicans had demanded the audio after Hur declined to prosecute Biden, in part because a jury might sympathize with him as an "elderly man with a poor memory."

Last month, both the House Judiciary and Oversight committees approved a report recommending that the House hold Garland in contempt for defying congressional subpoenas pertaining to the audio recording. And on Tuesday, the GOP-controlled Rules Committee voted along party lines to send the contempt resolution to the House floor.

“This is not a complicated matter: The executive branch and its agencies, including the Department of Justice, are not above Congress’ right to oversee those agencies,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told the Rules Committee. “We, as members of the House of Representatives, have a duty to ensure congressional subpoenas are fully complied with by those who received them — people, companies and particularly the federal government.”

Democrats countered that the full transcript of the Biden interview has already been released to the public, and they sounded warnings that Republicans could manipulate the audio. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans are targeting Garland after they failed to come up with enough evidence to impeach Biden.

“What do our Republican friends do when an investigation turns up short? Simply put, they engage in fantasy. That’s what they’re doing