Garland wrote in a separate letter to Biden that the audio recordings of his interview “fall within the scope of executive privilege,” and that giving the recordings to Congress "would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department’s ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal investigations — in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important.”
Yeah, I mean, this seems completely reasonable? This doesn’t seem like a scandal so much as shutting down a probable attempt by the GOP to make a big deal out of these audio recordings’ contents regardless of what it is (or isn’t), which would undoubtedly make future subjects of these interviews guard their tongues a lot more.
Yeah, we have the transcripts. I have no problem with this.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the President’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress," Justice Department official Carlos Felipe Uriarte wrote in a letter to Jordan, of Ohio, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Comer, of Kentucky, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
While a transcript of Biden’s interview has already been released, the Jan. 6 committee illustrated that audio and visuals can pack a much harder political punch with the American public than dense, written reports that very few voters will actually read.
Trump, who is currently facing four separate criminal cases in which he has pleaded not guilty, did not sit down with then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a decision which paid off for the former president.
In comments to the press in the same week that he called Trump’s hush money trial “an atrocity,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Biden was “using his authority to defend himself politically.”
The House Oversight Committee was supposed to hold a hearing this morning to consider recommending contempt charges against Garland, but the Trump trial took precedence over the Biden probe.
Several members of the panel made plans to show their allegiance to Trump by appearing at the courthouse today, forcing Comer to pull the plug on the 11 a.m. hearing and move it to 8 p.m. tonight.
The original article contains 1,135 words, the summary contains 250 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
