President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) doubled down on its decision not to release the tape of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur in a legal opinion publicly released before the new year.
In an opinion dated Dec. 20, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Fonzone advised Attorney General Merrick Garland that Congress “may not constitutionally use its inherent power of contempt to arrest or direct that daily fines of $10,000 be imposed” against him for complying with Biden’s decision to assert executive privilege over the tape.
“To be sure, Congress may disagree with the President’s privilege assertion—it would not be the first time Congress objected to the Executive Branch’s withholding of information on executive privilege grounds,” the opinion states. “But what Congress cannot do is arrest, imprison, or impose burdensome financial sanctions on an official for carrying out the President’s direction not to disclose information over which the President asserted executive privilege.”
Jake Tapper Tells Dan Goldman There’s ‘No Basis’ For Biden DOJ To Withhold Hur Tapes pic.twitter.com/FNH1bzBBvI
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 12, 2024
In his report on Biden’s handling of classified documents, Hur said Biden would likely present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
The House passed a resolution along party lines in June to hold Garland in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena to release the tape. The DOJ declined to prosecute Garland in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, determining his actions “did not constitute a crime.”
In July, another House resolution to fine Garland $10,000 every day that he did not comply with the subpoena failed to pass. Biden initially invoked executive privilege to block release of the tapes in May.
A lawsuit filed against Garland by the House Judiciary Committee in July seeking the recording is still ongoing.
“The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview,” the lawsuit states.
White House aides insulated Biden as his health declined, including from administration officials, the Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 19. CBS Reporter Jan Crawford called Biden’s cognitive decline the most “underreported” story of 2024.
The White House repeatedly denied signs of Biden’s decline, spinning videos of him appearing to freeze as “cheap-fakes.”
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