"Political stunt": House Judiciary moves to hold AG Garland in contempt

In yet another political attack on Biden cabinet officials, House Republicans are advancing a motion to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress

The 18-14 House Judiciary Committee vote along party lines comes as the Biden Administration moved to keep audio recordings from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s conversation with the president under executive privilege. Per the GOP, Garland, a one-time nominee for the Supreme Court, should have handed over the audio despite executive privilege.

House Democrats, and some Republicans, call the move a nakedly partisan attempt to make recordings available for campaign ads, as a transcript and final report from Hur were already made available.

“I think it’s a political stunt,” former Republican Rep. Ken Buck told CNN, adding that Garland turned over the transcript of Hur’s interview despite pressure from the left. “They released the transcript. They have the information. They’re just looking for something for political purposes.”

House Republicans, led by Chair Jim Jordan, R-Oh., say the audio is necessary to assess President Biden’s role in storing classified documents to further an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

“Transcripts are often imperfect, especially to convey the timing of question and answer and disfluencies of a witness, or hesitations, among other things. All of that is demeanor evidence,” Republican Representative Dan Bishop of North Carolina said in a Judiciary hearing, per The Hill.

The 44-seat body was a dozen members short in today’s vote, in part because Congressmen Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. were absent, supporting Donald Trump in his criminal trial.

Before the vote can be brought to the floor, it needs to be passed by the House Oversight Committee, which pushed its own consideration of the motion back due to the absence of several Republican members, a move which some Democratic lawmakers bashed.

“I don't think that anything could animate the phrase “do nothing Congress” more than missing votes and canceling hearings to go up and be a spectator at your cult leader's trial,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said in the hearing.

Ultimately, the Garland-led Department of Justice would oversee the charges if passed, meaning the move would ultimately have little consequence.