WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House narrowly voted Wednesday to charge Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt of Congress, a major escalation in the party’s fight against a justice system that Republicans portray as unfairly targeting President Donald Trump.
The vote was 216-207, with Republican Representative David Joyce of Ohio joining all Democrats in voting no. Seven Democrats and one Republican did not vote.
At issue was Garland’s refusal to turn over audio recordings of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden about his handling of classified documents. Republicans had demanded the recordings, arguing that jurors might sympathize with Hur as an “old man with a bad memory” because he would not indict Biden.
Democrats countered that the full recording of Biden’s interview is already public and warned that Republicans could manipulate the audio.
The contempt vote was successful, but it was largely a political stunt. Biden and his administration asserted executive privilege to refuse to turn over the audio files, all but eliminating the possibility that Garland could be prosecuted for ignoring a subpoena. It would also be unprecedented for Justice Department prosecutors to pursue a top agency leader for contempt.
Last month, the House Judiciary and Oversight committees approved reports recommending that the House hold Garland in contempt for ignoring congressional subpoenas for the audio recordings. After Wednesday’s vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, argued that the committees need the audio tapes to verify their accuracy.
“It is Congress, not the executive branch, that decides what materials Congress needs to conduct its own investigation, and there are consequences for failing to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas,” Johnson said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to oversee the Special Counsel’s activities, particularly Special Counsel Har’s decision not to indict President Biden for clear violations of the law.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans were targeting Garland because he had failed to present enough evidence to impeach Biden.
“What will our Republican friends do when they find that the investigation is insufficient? Simply put, they daydream. And that’s what they’re doing here today. Having failed to find wrongdoing on the president, they’re now setting their sights on the attorney general,” Nadler said.
“This isn’t about policy disagreements with the Department of Justice. This is about satisfying MAGA supporters after 18 months of an investigation that has produced failure after failure,” Nadler continued. “This contempt resolution will do little other than smear Merrick Garland’s reputation. No matter what Republicans say today, he will remain a good and decent public servant.”
The vote on the House floor was always going to be tense, given Republicans’ razor-thin majority. Rep. Vince Fong of California was sworn in last week to fill the vacancy left by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s resignation, but the GOP allows only two Republican defectors on any vote. Three Republican no votes would have prevented the contempt action, with the entire House voting.
Joyce, the only Republican to vote against the contempt motion, said in a statement that he could not support the politicization of the justice system.
“As a former prosecutor, I cannot in good conscience support a resolution that seeks to further politicize our justice system in order to score political points,” Joyce said. “The American people expect Congress to work for them, solve their policy problems, and prioritize good governance. Enough is enough.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and his leadership expressed confidence in their floor leaders’ majority in moving the contempt measure forward, and several less-popular Republicans, including Reps. Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro of New York, said they would vote in favor. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who was another major Democratic target in November, balked at the idea of contempt charges but said he supported them, arguing that the public has a right to hear the audio.
“I hope this can be resolved without a contempt vote, but the Attorney General has an obligation to provide the audio recordings to the American people. Special Counsel Hoare’s showing that President Biden knowingly stored classified information in his home and garage makes the comparisons more comparable to what the Department of Justice is prosecuting President Trump,” Bacon said in a statement.
“While Trump is being prosecuted, Heo argues that President Biden is too old and has a poor memory to be dragged through court. This is a very important argument about the current president and the Democratic candidate,” Bacon added. “The public deserves to assess this for themselves.”
Garland is not the first attorney general to be held in contempt by the bipartisan House of Representatives, which held President Trump’s Attorney General William Barr in contempt in 2019 and President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast & Furious investigation.
Neither was charged.
But Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, suggested House Republicans could sue to get access to Biden’s audio recordings.
“We believe this is going to end up in court,” Jordan said before Wednesday’s vote, adding, “Our argument is strong and we believe we will prevail.”
This week’s contempt vote is just the latest Republican move to paint a “two-tier” justice system in which Trump could be criminally prosecuted and convicted while Biden is given immunity. House Republicans have railed against what they see as the “weaponization” of the government and justice system against Trump and his allies, even setting up a special weaponization committee to investigate.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Tuesday convicted the president’s son, Hunter Biden, on firearms charges, and the department is also indicting two Democratic congressional representatives on bribery charges.
Nearly a year ago, a federal grand jury indicted President Trump on dozens of felony counts related to his handling of classified documents after he left office.
However, on February 8, after several months of investigation, Hoare announced that he would not indict Biden for his handling of classified documents. Hoare said Biden’s keeping and disclosing classified documents after leaving his position as vice president “poses a significant risk to national security.” However, Hoare explained that he did not indict Biden because it would be difficult to get a jury to convict Biden, who was in his mid-80s at the time, of a felony that requires a deliberate mental state.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee last week, Garland said he provided Hoar’s report to the committee, allowed Hoar to testify for “more than five hours” and provided the committee with a transcript of Hoar’s interview with Biden “beyond precedent.”
But Garland argued that turning over the audio recordings “may make witnesses less cooperative with law enforcement in future investigations” and that “witnesses’ responses could be influenced if they believed that audio of their law enforcement interrogations would be broadcast to Congress and the public.”
Garland also denounced the contempt charges, calling them “only the latest in a long line of attacks on the work of the Department of Justice.”
“This occurs alongside threats to defund certain department investigations, most recently the special counsel’s prosecution of a former president, and alongside false allegations by district attorneys that jury verdicts in state cases were somehow manipulated by the Department of Justice,” Garland continued, referring to the New York hush money lawsuit against Trump. “This conspiracy theory is an attack on the very process of justice.”
