WASHINGTON (CN) — Just weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland again rebuffed efforts from House Republicans to secure documents related to a special counsel investigation of President Joe Biden, lawmakers asked a federal court to force the Justice Department into compliance.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee argued that Garland and the Justice Department undertook a “frivolous assertion of executive privilege” when they refused to turn over audio recordings of interviews between Biden and special counsel Robert Hur.
Republicans have long clamored for the recordings, created while Hur investigated the president’s handling of classified documents. The special counsel in a February report recommended no criminal charges against Biden, a conclusion which incensed GOP lawmakers, some of whom claimed the Justice Department was going easy on the president — pointing to Hur’s observations about Biden’s memory and mental acuity as proof.
Lawmakers similarly have demanded the recordings of Hur’s interviews with the president’s ghost writer, Mark Zwonitzer.
The White House provided redacted transcripts of the interviews, but it claimed executive privilege over the corresponding recordings. The administration says providing the tapes to Congress would have a chilling effect on the Justice Department’s prosecutorial power and could dissuade witnesses from participating in special counsel interviews in the future.
In Monday’s suit, the Judiciary Committee rejected those claims and contended that the Biden administration waived executive privilege when it handed over transcripts of Hur’s conversations with the president.
The plaintiffs pointed to former President Richard Nixon asserting executive privilege over audio recordings related to the Watergate scandal, and said the court held at the time that such information could not be considered confidential, since the president had released transcripts already.
“The same is true in this case,” the committee wrote. “Here, the president had not asserted executive privilege over any portion of the transcripts of the interviews prior to their disclosure to the committee.”
The Republicans added that the assertion of executive privilege should be considered invalid because it came after the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Garland for the records, and weeks after the March response deadline the panel set.
Further, the lawmakers contended that the tapes aren't covered under the traditional understanding of executive privilege because they don't concern the president's decisionmaking, communication with close advisers nor national security duties.
House Republicans, who for months have pursued an open-ended impeachment inquiry into Biden, say that securing audio tapes from the special counsel interviews is crucial for determining the president’s mental state and whether the Justice Department erred by not recommending charges against him.
Those arguments were once again on full display in Monday’s lawsuit.
“A transcript is not a carbon copy of an oral interview and thus is undeniably inferior evidence to an audio recording,” the committee said. “An audio recording, by contrast, paints a more complete picture of an interview because it captures aspects of the interview that a transcript cannot and, unlike a transcript, is not manipulated by a human transcriber.”
Getting access to those recordings, the Republicans contended, would also help the Judiciary Committee decide whether “legislative reforms” are necessary for the Justice Department’s use of special counsels.
A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic ranking member, also was not immediately available for comment on the lawsuit.
Monday’s filing is just the latest attempt by congressional Republicans to compel the Justice Department to hand over the Hur recordings. The House last month voted along party lines to hold Garland in contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide the tapes. The Justice Department however said it would not enforce the resolution.
A separate resolution spearheaded by Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna would force Garland into compliance using an antiquated procedural mechanism known as inherent contempt and fine the attorney general $10,000 per day until he complies with the subpoena.
Luna is expected to bring her measure up for a vote following Congress’ Independence Day recess.
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