DOJ rebuffs GOP’s second demand for Biden-Hur audio recordings

The Justice Department on Thursday refused for the second time to turn over audio recordings of President Biden’s meeting with special counsel Robert Hur, denying claims by Republican impeachment investigators that the recordings contained information useful to the investigation. Rejected.

The letter reiterates concerns about a possible contempt suit against Attorney General Merrick Garland. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) had raised the issue Thursday in response to the failure to deliver the audio files.

“Our cooperation has been extraordinary. The commission has not responded in kind. The more information we receive, the less complacent we feel, the less justified our contempt, and the more we seem to rush toward it.” said Carlos Uriarte, head of legislative affairs at the Justice Department, in a letter to Jordan. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.);

“The committee’s failure to identify a need for these audio files based on legislative or impeachment purposes raises concerns that the audio files may serve other purposes,” he said. It noted that the Justice Department had previously questioned whether these audio files were being requested for political purposes.

“This concern is only deepened by the Commission’s failure to identify the legitimate purpose served by the creation of these files,” Uriarte added.

The committee already has records of Mr. Biden’s interviews with Mr. Xu and is examining how classified documents from his time as vice president were leaked to his home and other offices. Mr. Xu’s resort had criticized Mr. Biden, but decided there was not enough evidence to show he had broken the law.

The Justice Department argued that sharing the recordings could make law enforcement’s job more difficult and could discourage witnesses from cooperating if their recorded interviews were submitted to Congress.

Comer and Jordan wrote last week that the impeachment inquiry “would be difficult without these audio recordings.”

“Your response to the subpoena remains inadequate and suggests that you are withholding the records for partisan purposes and to avoid political embarrassment to President Biden,” they wrote.

The pair say greater insight can be gained from audio recordings, which are “a unique and valuable medium that captures tone of voice, pace, inflection, nuances of language, and other idiosyncrasies.”

“Transcription cannot record these obvious linguistic cues,” they write.

“For example, a subject’s pauses or intonations can provide context and evidence to indicate whether the subject is avoidant or suffering from ‘memory decline.'”

Much of the Justice Department’s denial of the committee’s request is an indictment of the impeachment inquiry as a whole.

In seeking access to the audio recordings, the two chairs suggested that Biden’s interview with Xu may have been exposed in some way to the impeachment inquiry, and that some of the documents in question are from his family. suggested without evidence that it may be related to an investigation of business transactions.

“There is nothing in the interview transcripts already produced by the ministry to suggest or support the committee’s speculations in this regard, nor in the audio files of the same conversations. “There is nothing in official reports or testimony to support this speculation,” the Justice Department wrote.

Republican investigators have similarly suggested that the material could shed some light on the search for evidence that Mr. Biden may have accepted bribes.

“The committee has not provided any explanation as to why the audio of the interviews, for which the department has already produced transcripts, would address these questions,” Uriarte said.

The Justice Department also noted that it had arranged for congressional investigators to examine two Ukraine-related documents found in files found at Biden’s home, but no one has taken advantage of the offer.

“Certainly, the initiation of a contempt proceeding is no substitute for evidence in support of one’s claims,” ​​Uriarte wrote.