WASHINGTON – The Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives will file a lawsuit next week against the Justice Department for seeking access to tapes of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden.
House Speaker Mike Johnson made the announcement during a press conference on Wednesday after being asked about Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s plans to hold a vote on Friday for “reasonable contempt” of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office.
Luna and others shared their hope that the vote could persuade Garland to release the tapes, even as Biden exercised his executive privilege.
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said during the press conference that House Republicans agreed to have access to the tapes “to confirm what is in the written transcript.”
“In the meantime, there are many different ideas and discussions where people are thinking about how we might get access to these tapes. We are looking at all possibilities,” Johnson said. “I have spoken to Anna Paulina Luna and other colleagues about various ideas, but I don’t think anything has been decided yet.”
Johnson said Republicans in the House would “be as aggressive as possible and use every tool at our disposal to make sure” the tapes are released “because we are constitutionally obligated to do so.”
Voting on Friday
Luna and several of her colleagues had held a press conference a few hours earlier to argue for a vote on Garland’s contempt of court, a rarely used procedure that could potentially lead to his imprisonment and trial in the House of Representatives.
The vote will take place on Friday morning, she said.
“This would allow the Speaker of the House to order the Sergeant at Arms to take the Attorney General into custody if he fails to comply with our request,” Luna said, later adding that she hoped Garland would face the vote if successful.
The contempt proceedings would likely be quicker than waiting for the House Republicans’ lawsuit to work its way through the judicial system, she said.
“By virtue of the inherent power of the House of Representatives to hold contempt of court, the recalcitrant witness may be arrested and brought before the Bar of the House of Representatives, with the offender facing imprisonment,” states “The House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House.”
The detailed 1,073-page documentwritten by two former House members and the current House member, points out that during “the testimony of the witness in the House, the witness may be asked questions by the Speaker … or by a committee.”
“In one case, the matter was investigated by a committee, the defendant was then brought before the House Bar, and a resolution was presented to the House for a vote,” it said.
Hur’s report on the investigation into Biden’s secret documents
How Approved The special counsel’s 388-page report from February concluded that Biden “intentionally withheld classified information” after his term as vice president, even though he declined to prosecute the incumbent president.
Hur wrote in the report “that Mr. Biden would likely present himself at the jury trial as a sympathetic, well-meaning older man with a bad memory, as he did during our interview with him.”
Biden and many of his allies vehemently rejected Hur’s characterizations of the president and his memory, while Republicans sought access to the tape recordings for a potentially more detailed recounting of the interview.
The characterization of Biden’s memory has become part of the Republican argument that he is not fit to remain in the Oval Office as president for another four years.
The interview recordings could either confirm or refute that account, although Republican lawmakers insist that Biden and Garland’s blocking of the release of the recordings could harm his re-election.
The house Voted 216-207 earlier this month to charge Garland with contempt of Congress for failing to release the audio recordings of the Hur-Biden interview after the Oversight and Judiciary Committees issued a subpoena.
Garland published a written explanation It then said it was “deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a key congressional agency into a partisan political weapon.”
“Today’s vote disregards the constitutional separation of powers, the Justice Department’s need to protect its investigations, and the significant amount of information we provided to the committees,” Garland wrote. “I will always stand up for this Department, its employees, and its important mission to defend our democracy.”
Biden, the likely Democratic presidential candidate, will discuss Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, on Thursday evening in Atlanta, Georgia.
The two are expected to hold a second debate in September, well before voters go to the polls in November.
