Republicans voted 216-207 on Wednesday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voted with Democrats not to hold Garland in contempt.
Speaker Mike Johnson called the vote a “significant step in maintaining the integrity of our oversight processes and responsibilities by holding Attorney General Garland in contempt of Congress.”
“Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight of the Special Counsel’s work and specifically Special Counsel Hur’s determination not to prosecute President Biden for the clear violation of the law,” Johnson’s statement continued.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) shared a transcript of the interview in which Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and therefore would not levy charges against the president for taking top-secret documents to his Delaware home. Hur’s team wrote in their report that “based on our direct interactions with and observations of [Biden], he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”
“It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” the report continued.
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Hur further reported that Biden’s memory “appeared to have significant limitations,” noting Biden could
