Biden Blocks Release of Audio Recording of His Special Counsel Interview

President Joe Biden is blocking the release of an audio recording of his interview with then-Special Counsel Robert Hur.

On Thursday, Biden asserted executive privilege over the recording as House Republicans are threatening to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for not handing the audio over.

The Associated Press reports, “Garland advised Biden in a letter on Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege. Garland told the Democratic president that the “committee’s needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.”

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte called the potential decision to hold Garland in contempt “unnecessary and unwarranted conflict.”

“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 held in contempt of Congress,” he said in a letter to lawmakers.

Meanwhile, White House Counsel Ed Siske claimed Republicans do not have a legitimate reason for seeking the audio of the interview and instead insisted they simply want to “chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”

The AP explains the move “is a tacit admission that there are moments from the interview it fears portray Biden in a negative light in an election year — and that could be exacerbated by the release, or selective release, of the audio.