The Justice Department says Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress after refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified documents case because his actions “did not constitute a crime.”
So, no crime was committed.
Contempt of Congress is determined by Congress, and that did happen. But the DoJ has a longstanding policy not to prosecute in situations like Garland’s. And even if it did, the DoJ determined the source of the contempt charge wasn’t valid, so neither was the charge itself.
Congress can’t override executive privilege arbitrarily (or even at all,)
It’s there to keep presidents from being meddled with by congress in exactly this manner, and charging executive officials who comply with executive privilege is contemptuous, and an attempt to weaponized the DOJ.
Executive privilege goes to the current sitting president, so Trump stopped hanging it the moment he was no longer president…
Right. Contempt of Congress charges are submitted to the DOJ to prosecute. And the DOJ has the policy to not prosecute those situations, as I posted previously.
Executive privilege doesn’t just disappear, it would still apply to everything under previous presidents as well, but it’s the current President that determines whether to remove it. Biden a while ago said it wouldn’t apply to things Trump’s administration is being investigated for.
Executive privilege exists specifically to prevent congress from using its subpoenas powers excessively and interfering with the business of the executive branch doing its job. The, uh, co-equal, executive branch.
for example by subpoenas for extremely sensitive testimony by a sitting president specifically so it can harvest damaging sound bites to use in their election campaign.
Such a use would unduly chill the ability of the DOJ to interview witnesses and subjects in an investigation and expect candid cooperation.
When a POTUS invokes executive privilege, it goes to the courts to decide. Not congress. It is difficult to believe there is a legitimate need for crafting legislation, however, since they already have transcripts of the testimony. They don’t need the audio recordings.
It’s more that after your term is over, you still have protection against having to answer for official acts during your term when you were still president. They’ve gone after Trump for the classified documents because that was not part of his official acts, so Biden has nothing to proect.
Congress can vote that anyone is in contempt for anything that they feel like if they really want to. It doesn’t mean it’s real or going to go anywhere.