Biden asserts executive privilege to block release of special counsel interviews | House of Representatives
Joe Biden asserts executive privilege to suspend House Republicans obtaining tapes of his interviews with Robert Hurr, the special counsel investigating Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as Barack Obama’s vice president.
IN a letter the New York Times reports and other commercial establishments on Thursday, White House counsel Edward Siskel told the Republican chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees: “The lack of a legal need for the audio tapes reveals your likely purpose to cut, distort and use them for partisan political purposes.”
“Requiring such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement material from the executive branch because you want to manipulate it for potential political gain is inappropriate.”
The two chairmen, Jim Jordan of Ohio (judiciary) and James Comer of Kentucky (oversight), both close allies of Donald Trump, have led Republican efforts to embroil Biden in damaging investigations, including impeachment.
Biden’s retention of classified information came to light as Trump, Biden’s opponent in this year’s election, faces 40 criminal charges over the same issue.
Unlike Trump — who faces 48 other criminal charges and has been hit with multimillion-dollar civil penalties — Biden is cooperating with the special counsel appointed to investigate the case.
Hurr, who was appointed US attorney from Trump, cleared Biden of wrongdoing. But Hurr caused a stir when he made repeated references to the 81-year-old president’s age in his report, including saying that if he had pressed charges, jurors would have seen Biden as a “nice, well-meaning, old man with a bad memory.”
Herr has defended his work. Republicans have demanded access to tapes of Hurr’s interviews with Biden, especially after Biden himself made angry claims about what was said: contradicts according to transcripts.
News organizations have sued to receive the records.
In Congress, Republicans have threatened to impeach U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland after he rejected subpoenas for the records and other materials.
IN a letter Biden’s reported of the Times Garland said that releasing Hurr’s interviews “would raise an unacceptable risk” of undermining “such high-profile criminal investigations — particularly investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is critical.”
The Justice Department said the decision to withhold the interviews was not made for partisan reasons.
Carlos Uriarte, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, told Jordan and Comer, “The longstanding position of the executive branch, held by administrations of both parties, is that an official asserting the president’s claims of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”
In response, House Republicans cited comments from February in which a Biden spokesman said the president had “nothing to hide” and he asked: “Why is Biden hiding behind executive privilege now?”
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Comer said, “This is a five-alarm fire at the White House … Today’s Hail Mary from the White House changes nothing for our committee.”
Jordan told reporters that the transcripts already turned over were not “sufficient evidence of the state of the president’s memory” and said, “This last-minute subpoena does not change the fact that the attorney general did not comply with our subpoena.”
Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee later they voted to advance contempt proceedings against Garland. The oversight committee had to deal with the matter.
Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheng said Biden “and his weak administration have irrevocably politicized the key constitutional principle of executive privilege by denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to make political cover for Crooked Joe’.
But Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Times that the Republican demands were “purely political.”
“The only reason they want the tape is to try to use the clips for ad campaigns or something like that, which clearly doesn’t meet the legislative purpose standard set by the Supreme Court for congressional oversight.”
