After the House of Representatives narrowly voted to punish Attorney General Merrick Garland for his failure to turn over audio tapes from an investigation against President Joe Biden, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) decided not to file charges against him for contempt of Congress.
The House, which is controlled by Republicans, voted 216–207 on Wednesday to propose that the Department of Justice (DoJ), which Mr. Garland is in charge of, bring criminal charges against the nation’s top law enforcement official.
The action is a result of Mr. Garland’s denial to provide Republican legislators with audio recordings of interviews conducted as part of a Justice Department investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified materials.
A senior DoJ official stated that the department determined Mr. Garland’s actions “do not constitute a crime” in a letter to Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson released on Friday. Mr. Johnson referred to the action as “sadly predictable”.
Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte stated that the government has a “longstanding position” not to press charges when the president chooses to use his executive privilege to withhold the sought evidence.
Presidents are authorized by legal doctrine to keep information from the other two branches of the US government about the executive branch. This is known as executive privilege.
“Accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” wrote Uriarte.
In order to get the attorney general to turn over the tape, the House Speaker threatened to take the matter to federal court.
“Another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration,” Mr. Johnson said of the DoJ ruling.
He brought up the cases of two former Trump aides who attempted to evade congressional subpoenas by claiming executive privilege: Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. They were convicted guilty of contempt of Congress, faced criminal charges, and received jail sentences.
In order to prevent House Republicans from seeing tapes of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur—who was looking into his retention of secret papers after serving as vice president—Mr. Biden used presidential privilege last month.
When the documents were found, Mr. Biden turned them in. Despite having kept the files, the Democratic US president should not be indicted, according to the DoJ special counsel who examined him, since the jury would likely see him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Republicans, according to the White House, had no justifiable reason to listen to the entire five hours of recording because a transcript had already been made public. Republicans, they claimed, intended to exploit the tape in attack advertisements aimed at Mr. Biden as he runs for reelection in November.
Opponents view Mr. Biden’s age—81 years old and the oldest US president—as a major electoral weakness. Donald Trump, his Republican opponent, recently turned 78 years old.
Trump is being prosecuted at the federal level for allegedly keeping records that were supposed to be turned over to government archivists once he departed office.
He was required to produce the confidential documents, but he reportedly tried to obstruct justice by hiding them.
In subsequent years, Congress has found two additional attorneys general in contempt.
Similar letters from the Department of Justice informing Democratic and Republican leaders Eric Holder and Bill Barr that prosecutors were choosing not to seek charges were received in both cases.
