House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that the House will take its contempt case against Attorney General Merrick Garland to court after the Justice Department declined to bring charges.
“It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice will not indict Garland for failing to comply with a Congressional subpoena, even as it vigorously prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same matters,” Johnson said in a statement. The Associated Press reported. “This is another example of the two-tiered justice system that the Biden administration has brought about.”
The Justice Department ruled Friday that Garland did not commit a crime by failing to comply with demands from House Republicans who subpoenaed audio of conversations between special counsel Robert Hur and President Biden amid an investigation into classified presidential documents.
CNN reported: Johnson said he would “certify a contempt record to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia” and move forward with the process of “enforcing Attorney General Garland’s subpoena in federal court.”
The news comes after House Republicans voted earlier this week to hold Garland in contempt of Congress after the Justice Department refused to hand over the audio files. Republicans have already obtained a transcript of the conversation, and the Justice Department said Biden did not say anything relevant to the GOP impeachment investigation.
In a statement after the vote, Garland said it was “deeply unfortunate” that the House had “transformed congressional power into a partisan weapon.”
The Justice Department’s decision Friday coincides with a memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel saying Biden’s assertion of executive privilege over the tapes would give the attorney general immunity from prosecution.
The department noted that it declined to prosecute Attorney General Bill Barr after he was indicted for contempt in 2019. According to the Associated Press, House Democrats voted to issue a notice of indictment against Barr after he refused to provide documents related to the investigation into Trump.
The Justice Department also did not indict President Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who was held in contempt for failing to cooperate with a House committee investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
However, Navarro and Bannon were both charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply with related subpoenas on January 6. Navarro has been incarcerated since March, and Bannon is due to be sentenced to federal prison within the next few weeks.
