(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Judiciary Committee has sued to Justice Department to force prosecutors to produce the audio of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview of President Joe Biden over his mishandling of classified information.
The audio sought by the GOP is related to Hur’s February report, in which he declined to prosecute Biden in part to his failing cognitive abilities.
“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation … will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires,” Hur said in his infamous February report.
The GOP—and must of the public—wants to hear Hur’s interview with Biden for themselves. However, “Attorney General [Merrick] Garland has refused to produce the audio recordings of the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and [his ghostwriter Mark] Zwonitzer,” the Judiciary Committee said in its lawsuit, filed Monday.
“Instead, Attorney General Garland asked that President Biden assert executive privilege over those recordings, and President Biden complied with that request.”
The GOP’s lawsuit explained why the audio recordings are necessary for voters to hear.
“Audio recordings are better evidence than transcripts of what happened during the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer. For example, they contain verbal and nonverbal context that is missing from a cold transcript …,” the lawsuit said.
“The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview.”
The DOJ has yet to respond.
The lawsuit follows House Republicans moving last week to hold Mark Zwonitzer in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena related to Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials.
According to the FBI’s interview transcript with Biden’s ghostwriter, agents accused Zwonitzer of obstruction because he destroyed recordings of his interviews with Biden after learning that Special Counsel Robert Hur was investigating the President’s mishandling of classified documents.
But because of the heavy redactions, it’s unclear how exactly the line of questioning went. Hur said in a February report that he didn’t charge Zwonitzer, either, because “the ghostwriter offered plausible, innocent reasons for why he deleted the recordings.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
