Democrat President Joe Biden has asserted executive privilege to block lawmakers from accessing the recordings from his interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
Hur interviewed Biden during his investigation into the president’s mishandling of classified documents.
However, after interviewing Biden, Hur determined that Biden was too elderly and mentally challenged for the special counsel to secure a conviction from a jury.
Despite concluding that Biden had mishandled the material, Hur noted in his report that the president came across during the interviews as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden met with Hur for about five hours last year.
During the interviews, Biden was grilled about his handling of the classified documents.
Hur noted in his report that Biden struggled to remember key events from his life, including when his own son had died and what years he served as vice president.
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt,” Hur wrote in his report.
“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 findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime but could serve as president.
House Republicans have sought to access the recordings to determine what led Hur to his conclusion about Biden’s cognitive state.
As part of their investigations, copies of the interview recordings were requested by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY), chairmen of the Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Oversight and Accountability, respectively.
However, the White House has just asserted executive privilege over audio and video recordings related to Hur’s interviews with Biden.
In a letter to Jordan and Comer, Associate Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote:
“I write to inform you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the requested audio recordings and is making a protective assertion of privilege over any remaining materials responsive to the subpoenas that have not already been produced.
“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the President’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”
The executive privilege, according to the letter, also includes interviews between Biden and ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked Biden to block the release of the audio recordings.
“The audio recordings of your interview and Mr. Zwonitzer’s interview fall within the scope of executive privilege,” Garland wrote in a letter to Biden.
“Production of these recordings to the Committees would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department’s ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal investigations–in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important.”
In a letter revealing Biden’s decision, White House Counsel Ed Siskel also wrote to Jordan and Comer Thursday morning.
Siskel alleged that House Republicans would “chop” up the recordings for “partisan political purposes.”
“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” Siskel wrote to Republican House leaders.
“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”
Comer responded by arguing that the move proves there’s a “five-alarm fire at the White House” over the matter.
“Clearly President Biden and his advisors fear releasing the audio recordings of his interview because it will again reaffirm to the American people that President Biden’s mental state is in decline,” Comer said.
“The House Oversight Committee requires these recordings as part of our investigation of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
“The White House is asserting executive privilege over the recordings, but it has already waived privilege by releasing the transcript of the interview.
“Today’s Hail Mary from the White House changes nothing for our committee.
“The House Oversight Committee will move forward with its markup of a resolution and report recommending to the House of Representatives that Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for defying a lawful subpoena.”
The letters come after The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, as well as Judicial Watch and CNN, filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking the release of the tapes.
The FOIA requests came after House Republicans unsuccessfully subpoenaed the recordings.
In April, Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would not abide by a subpoena from House Republicans.
The DOJ also maintained that its cooperation with Congress’s Biden family investigation has been “extraordinary.”
Garland was facing potentially being held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the documents.
Biden’s order, however, protects Garland from being held in contempt, according to the DOJ.
The House committees on Thursday, however, are still considering a contempt of Congress resolution against Garland.
“This morning we get an 11th-hour invocation of executive privilege,” Jordan said Thursday.
“President Biden is asserting executive privilege for the same reason we need the audio recordings — they offer a unique perspective.”
“This last-minute invocation does not change the fact that the attorney general has not complied with our subpoena,” Jordan added.
President Donald Trump, who is facing multiple Democrat-led lawfare attacks, has meanwhile slammed the disparity in charges as a reflection of a “sick and corrupt, two-tiered system of justice in our country.”
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung added that the Biden admin has “irretrievably politicized” executive privilege.
“Crooked Joe Biden and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicized the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe,” Cheung said.
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