House votes to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress

The House of Representatives has voted to hold US Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, in Republicans’ latest attempts to salvage their so far unsuccessful investigations into President Joe Biden and his allies.

The House votede 216 to 207, with only Representative David Joyce of Ohio joining the Democrats to oppose the contempt vote.

The resolution specifically holds Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena that would have compelled him turn over audio recordings Biden conducted with former special counsel Robert Hur.

Democrats have charged that Republicans want to use the audio recordings for political purposes and to shame Biden after the special counsel report said that the president, 81, is an “elderly man with poor memory.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told The Independent that the vote for contempt was not political.

Republicans have failed to keep their conference on-message in their investigation of the Biden White House. Last month, the House Oversight Committee conducted a markup of the resolution that devolved into a shouting match after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett for her “fake eyelashes”. Crockett hit back that Greene had a “bleach blonde bad-built butch body” in a response that went viral.

Republicans voted overwhelmingly late last year to launch an impeachment inquiry at the behest of former president Donald Trump.

“They're all part of a cult and they just try to please the leader of the cult Donald Trump,” Representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee. McGovern noted that Republicans were being hypocritical because Republican