[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 99 (Wednesday, June 12, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H3739-H3767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   RECOMMENDING THAT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FIND UNITED STATES 
ATTORNEY GENERAL MERRICK B. GARLAND IN CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS FOR REFUSAL 
TO COMPLY WITH A SUBPOENA DULY ISSUED BY THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on the 
Judiciary, I call up the report (H. Rept. 118-527) and accompanying 
resolution recommending that the House of Representatives find United 
States Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in contempt of Congress for 
refusal to comply with a subpoena duly issued by the Committee on the 
Judiciary, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the report.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 1287, the 
report is considered read.
  The text of the report is as follows:

       The Committee on the Judiciary, having considered this 
     Report, reports favorably thereon and recommends that the 
     Report be approved.
       The form of the Resolution that the Committee on the 
     Judiciary would recommend to the House of Representatives 
     citing Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, U.S. Department 
     of Justice, for contempt of Congress pursuant to this Report 
     is as follows:
       Resolved, That Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, U.S. 
     Department of Justice, shall be found to be in contempt of 
     Congress for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena.
       Resolved, That pursuant to 2 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 192 and 194, 
     the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall certify the 
     report of the Committee on the Judiciary, detailing the 
     refusal of Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, U.S. 
     Department of Justice, to produce documents, records, and 
     materials to the Committee on the Judiciary as directed by 
     subpoena, to the United States Attorney for the District of 
     Columbia, to the end that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland 
     be proceeded against in the manner and form provided by law.
       Resolved, That the Speaker of the House shall otherwise 
     take all appropriate action to enforce the subpoena.

                           Executive Summary

       In the weeks following the February 5, 2024, release of 
     Special Counsel Robert K. Hur's report, the three House 
     Committees conducting an impeachment inquiry to determine 
     whether to draft articles of impeachment against President 
     Joseph R. Biden \1\ engaged with the Department of Justice to 
     obtain a limited set of documents and records related to the 
     report. After the Department declined to provide the 
     Committees with the relevant documents and records, the 
     Committee on the Judiciary (``Judiciary Committee'') and the 
     Committee on Oversight and Accountability (``Oversight 
     Committee'') issued identical subpoenas on February 27, 2024, 
     to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland compelling production 
     of four specific categories of documents and records, 
     including audio and video recordings of Special Counsel Hur's 
     interviews with President Biden and his ghostwriter, Mark 
     Zwonitzer.\2\ The Judiciary Committee subpoenaed these 
     materials for several reasons--including to determine whether 
     sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment 
     against President Biden for consideration by the full House 
     of Representatives and to determine if legislation is needed 
     to codify procedures governing the Department's special 
     counsel investigations or to strengthen the Department's 
     commitment to impartial justice. To date, the Department has 
     refused to produce the audio recordings.
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     \1\ H.R. Res. 918, 118th Cong. (2023).
     \2\ Letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman. H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, to Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice (Feb. 27, 2024) (hereinafter 
     ``Subpoena Letter'').
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       During Special Counsel Hur's investigation, his team 
     uncovered evidence that President Biden ``willfully retained 
     and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency 
     when he was a private citizen.'' \3\ Special Counsel Hur 
     found that then-Vice President Biden had ``strong 
     motivations'' to flout the rules for properly handling 
     classified materials.\4\ In particular, Special Counsel Hur 
     observed that ``months before leaving office'' as vice 
     president, President Biden decided to write a book for ``an 
     advance of $8 million.'' \5\ The classified materials 
     retained by President Biden were an ``invaluable resource 
     that he consulted liberally'' while writing his book so that 
     he could give his ghostwriter ``raw material . . . detailing 
     meetings and events that would be of interest to prospective 
     readers and buyers of his book.'' \6\ Additionally, Special 
     Counsel Hur observed that President Biden viewed the 
     classified materials ``as an irreplaceable contemporaneous 
     record of some of the most important moments of his vice 
     presidency[,]'' which ``was valuable to him for many reasons, 
     including to help defend his record and buttress his legacy 
     as a world leader.'' \7\ Despite this evidence, Special 
     Counsel Hur ultimately concluded that no criminal charges 
     were warranted.\8\
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     \3\ Report on the Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, 
     Retention, and Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered 
     at Locations Including the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware 
     Private Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Special 
     Counsel Robert K. Hur, U.S. Dep't of Justice at 1 (Feb. 2024) 
     (hereinafter ``Hur Report'').
     \4\ Id. at 231.
     \5\ Id. at 141, 231.
     \6\ Id. at 231.
     \7\ Id. at 231-32.
     \8\ Id. at 345.
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       President Biden has vehemently denied the findings in 
     Special Counsel Hur's report and he and his legal team have 
     attempted to frame Special Counsel Hur's mention of President 
     Biden's poor memory as ``gratuitous.'' \9\ Yet during his 
     testimony before the Committee, Special Counsel Hur stated 
     that, ``[t]he evidence and the President himself put his 
     memory squarely at issue.'' \10\ In his

[[Page H3740]]

     report, Special Counsel Hur noted that, during both his and 
     Zwonitzer's interviews with President Biden, the president's 
     ``memory was significantly limited,'' and he ``struggle[ed] 
     to remember events and strain[ed] at times to read and relay 
     his own [handwriting].'' \11\ Special Counsel Hur also 
     observed that President Biden ``did not remember when he was 
     vice president,'' ``for[got] when his [vice presidential] 
     term ended,'' and ``did not remember, even within several 
     years, when his son Beau died.'' \12\
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     \9\ Rebecca Beitsch, et al., Special counsel overstepped 
     mandate with `gratuitous' Biden slams, say ex-DOJ Dems, The 
     Hill (Feb. 12, 2024) (`` `When the inevitable conclusion is 
     that the facts and the evidence don't support any charges,' 
     said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House's special 
     counsel office, `you're left to wonder why this report spends 
     time making gratuitous and inappropriate criticisms of the 
     president.' ''); see Letter from Mr. Richard Sauber, Special 
     Counsel to the President, The White House, and Mr. Bob Bauer, 
     Personal Counsel to Joseph R. Biden. Jr., to Mr. Bradley 
     Weinsheimer, Assoc. Deputy Att'y Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice 
     at 2-3 (Feb. 12, 2024) (``This is the very definition of a 
     derogatory comment''. . . .).
     \10\ Hearing on the Report of Special Counsel Robert Hur: 
     Hearing Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. 17 
     (2024) (statement of Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, U.S. 
     Dep't of Justice) (hereinafter ``Hearing on Hur Report'').
     \11\ Hur Report, supra note 3, at 207.
     \12\ Id. at 207-08.
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       The Department continues to withhold key material 
     responsive to the subpoenas from the Judiciary and Oversight 
     Committees--specifically the audio recordings of Special 
     Counsel Hur's interviews with President Biden and Zwonitzer. 
     Its failure to fully comply with the Committees' subpoenas 
     has hindered the House's ability to adequately conduct 
     oversight over Special Counsel Hur regarding his 
     investigative findings and the President's retention and 
     disclosure of classified materials and impeded the 
     Committees' impeachment inquiry.

                         Authority and Purpose

       The Constitution vests the House of Representatives with 
     the ``sole Power of Impeachment'' \13\ and provides that the 
     ``President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the 
     United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment 
     for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high 
     Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' \14\ As the U.S. Court of Appeals 
     for the District of Columbia Circuit has stated, ``[t]o level 
     the grave accusation that a President may have committed 
     `Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,' 
     U.S. Const. art. II, Sec. 4, the House must be appropriately 
     informed.'' \15\ Congress's authority to access information 
     during an impeachment investigation is broader in certain 
     instances than in a purely legislative investigation,\16\ a 
     fact that the executive branch traditionally has 
     recognized.\17\ Investigating and collecting all relevant 
     evidence is the traditional means by which the House begins 
     an impeachment inquiry.\18\ Indeed, conducting an impeachment 
     inquiry without all pertinent evidence would be an affront to 
     the Constitution and irreparably damage public faith in the 
     impeachment process.\19\
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     \13\ U.S. Const. art. I, Sec. 2, cl. 5.
     \14\ Id. art. II, Sec. 4.
     \15\ Comm. on Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. 
     McGahn, 968 F.3d 755, 765 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (en banc).
     \16\ Todd Garvey, Cong. Rsch. Serv.: Legal Sidebar, LSB11083, 
     Impeachment Investigations, Part II: Access, at 1 (2023) 
     (``[T]here is reason to believe that invocation of the 
     impeachment power could improve the committees' legal claims 
     of access to certain types of evidence relevant to the 
     allegations of misconduct against President Biden.''). See 
     also In re Application of Comm. on Judiciary, 414 F. Supp. 3d 
     129, 176 (D.D.C. 2019) (``[D]enying [the House Judiciary 
     Committee] evidence relevant to an impeachment inquiry could 
     pose constitutional problems.''), aff'd, 951 F.3d 589 (D.C. 
     Cir. 2020), vacated and remanded sub nom. on other grounds, 
     DOJ v. House Comm. on the Judiciary, 142 S. Ct. 46 (2021); In 
     re Request for Access to Grand Jury Materials, 833 F.2d 1438, 
     1445 (11th Cir. 1987) (concluding that ``limit[ing] the 
     investigatory power of the House in impeachment proceedings . 
     . . would clearly violate separation of powers principles'').
     \17\ See Garvey, supra note 16 (``As a historical matter, all 
     three branches have suggested that the House possesses a 
     robust right of access to information when it is 
     investigating for impeachment purposes.''); Jonathan David 
     Schaub, The Executive's Privilege, 70 Duke L.J. 1, 87 (2020) 
     (``[P]residents and others have recognized throughout the 
     history of the country that their ability to withhold 
     information from Congress disappears in the context of 
     impeachment.'').
     \18\ See, e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 116-346, at 28 (2019) (``Here, 
     consistent with historical practice, the House divided its 
     impeachment inquiry into two phases, first collecting 
     evidence and then bringing that evidence before the Judiciary 
     Committee for its consideration of articles of 
     impeachment.''); H.R. Rep. No. 111-427, at 7 (2010) (``[T]he 
     impeachment inquiry was referred by the Committee on the 
     Judiciary to a Task Force on Judicial Impeachment . . ., 
     comprised of 12 Committee Members, to conduct the 
     investigation.''). See also Hearing on the Basis for the 
     Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph R. Biden: Before the 
     H. Comm. on Oversight & Accountability, 118th Cong. (Sept. 
     28, 2023) (statement of Jonathan Turley, Professor, The 
     George Washington University Law School); Memorandum from 
     Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Rep. 
     James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability, and Rep. Jason Smith, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Ways & Means, to Members of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, H. 
     Comm. on Oversight & Accountability, and H. Comm. on Ways & 
     Means (Sept. 27, 2023) (hereinafter ``Sept. 27 Memo'').
     \19\ See In re Application of Comm. on Judiciary, 414 F. 
     Supp. 3d at 176 (``Impeachment based on anything less than 
     all relevant evidence would compromise the public's faith in 
     the process.''); In re Request for Access to Grand Jury 
     Materials, 833 F.2d at 1445 (``Public confidence in a 
     procedure as political and public as impeachment is an 
     important consideration justifying disclosure.''); In re 
     Report and Recommendation of June 5, 1972 Grand Jury, 370 F. 
     Supp. 1219, 1230 (D.D.C. 1974) (``It would be difficult to 
     conceive of a more compelling need than that of this country 
     for an unswervingly fair [impeachment] inquiry based on all 
     the pertinent information.'').
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       On September 27, 2023, pursuant to the directive of the 
     Speaker, the Chairs of three House Committees (the Judiciary, 
     Oversight, and Ways and Means Committees) released a 
     memorandum setting forth the justification for and scope of 
     the inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist to draft 
     articles of impeachment against President Biden.\20\ On 
     December 13, 2023, the House of Representatives adopted House 
     Resolution 918, directing these three Committees to continue 
     the ongoing impeachment inquiry.\21\ By approving House 
     Resolution 918, the House also adopted House Resolution 
     917,\22\ which provided that ``[t]he authority provided by 
     clause 2(m) of rule XI of the Rules of the House of 
     Representatives to the Chairs of the Committees . . . 
     included, from the beginning of the existing House of 
     Representatives impeachment inquiry . . . and continues to 
     include, so long as the impeachment inquiry is ongoing, the 
     authority to issue subpoenas on behalf of such Committees for 
     the purpose of furthering the impeachment inquiry.'' \23\
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     \20\ Sept. 27 Memo, supra note 18.
     \21\ H.R. Res. 918, 118th Cong. (2023).
     \22\ H.R. Res. 917, 118th Cong. (2023).
     \23\ Id.
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       The subpoenas issued to the Department by the Judiciary and 
     Oversight Committees are part of the House's impeachment 
     inquiry. As explained in detail below, the requested 
     documents and materials are necessary to determine whether 
     sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment 
     against President Biden.
       However, the impeachment inquiry is not the only purpose 
     underlying the Committee's subpoena; it was also issued 
     pursuant to the Committee's authority to conduct legislative 
     oversight.\24\ Article I of the Constitution vests in 
     Congress a ``broad'' and ``indispensable'' power to conduct 
     oversight and investigations that ``encompasses inquiries 
     into the administration of existing laws, studies of proposed 
     laws, and surveys in our social, economic or political system 
     for the purpose of enabling Congress to remedy them.'' \25\ 
     Pursuant to the Rules of the House of Representatives, the 
     Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to conduct oversight 
     of the Department and of criminal justice matters in the 
     United States to inform potential legislative reforms.\26\
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     \24\ See Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, R. XI, 
     cl. 2(m)(1) (2023) (providing that ``a committee or 
     subcommittee is authorized . . . (B) to require, by subpoena 
     or otherwise, the attendance and testimony of such witnesses 
     and the production of such books, records, correspondence, 
     memoranda, papers, and documents as it considers 
     necessary''); Rules of the H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability, R. 12(g) (``The Chair of the Committee shall 
     . . . [a]uthorize and issue subpoenas as provided in House 
     Rule XI, clause 2(m), in the conduct of any investigation or 
     activity or series of investigations or activities within the 
     jurisdiction of the Committee.); Rules of the H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary, R. IV(a) (``A subpoena may be authorized and 
     issued by the Chair, in accordance with clause 2(m) of rule 
     XI of the House of Representatives, in the conduct of any 
     investigation or activity or series of investigations or 
     activities within the jurisdiction of the Committee, 
     following consultation with the Ranking Minority Member.'').
     \25\ Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 187, 215 (1957).
     \26\ Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, R. X, cl. 
     1(l) (2023).
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       To further the Committee's constitutionally mandated 
     oversight and legislative duties, the Committee must ensure 
     compliance with duly authorized congressional subpoenas. The 
     information that the Committee requires, and the Department 
     is in possession of, is necessary for the Committee to 
     consider potential legislative reforms to the Department and 
     its use of special counsels to conduct investigations of 
     current and former Presidents of the United States. These 
     potential legislative reforms may include, among other 
     things, codifying certain procedures governing the 
     Department's special counsel investigations to better ensure 
     that the Department pursues impartial justice. The 
     circumstances of Special Counsel Hur's investigative findings 
     and President Biden's public denial of these findings 
     demonstrate why such potential legislative reforms may be 
     necessary.

                    Background on the Investigation

       According to the report of Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, 
     in November 2022, Patrick Moore, one of President Biden's 
     personal attorneys, discovered 44 pages of documents 
     ``classified up to the Top Secret level'' stemming from his 
     tenure as Vice President at President Biden's office in 
     Washington, D.C., located at the Penn Biden Center.\27\ Moore 
     notified his colleague Bob Bauer, who then notified White 
     House Counsel Stuart Delery.\28\ The same day, the White 
     House Counsel's Office passed the information along to the 
     National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which 
     retrieved the documents, and referred the case to the 
     Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).\29\ 
     Additionally, between December 2022 and January 2023, Bauer, 
     Moore, and another Biden personal counsel, Jennifer Miller, 
     discovered additional classified materials, also from his 
     tenure as Vice President, in the garage, basement den, and 
     office of President Biden's personal residence in Wilmington, 
     Delaware.\30\ Between January and June 2023, FBI agents 
     located additional materials with classification markings at 
     the Morris Library and Biden Institute at the University of 
     Delaware.\31\
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     \27\ Hur Report, supra note 3, at 19 (The classification 
     marks on the documents ``dat[ed] back to [President Biden]'s 
     vice presidency'').
     \28\ Id.
     \29\ Id.
     \30\ Id. at 24-25.
     \31\ Id. at 28.
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       After receiving notification from NARA of the discovery of 
     classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, on November 
     14, 2022, Attorney General Garland assigned John Lausch, then 
     the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to 
     lead an investigation into President Biden's retention of 
     classified materials and ``assess whether

[[Page H3741]]

     the Attorney General should appoint a special counsel to 
     investigate the matter.'' \32\ After further discoveries of 
     classified material at President Biden's home and the 
     University of Delaware, Lausch determined that the 
     appointment of a special counsel was necessary.\33\
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     \32\ Id. at 21.
     \33\ Id. at 26.
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       Accordingly, on January 12, 2023, Attorney General Garland 
     appointed Robert K. Hur to serve as special counsel to 
     investigate whether President Biden unlawfully retained 
     classified information when he left office after the vice 
     presidency.\34\ During his investigation, Special Counsel Hur 
     conducted 173 interviews of 147 witnesses, including 
     President Biden himself and his memoir ghostwriter, Mark 
     Zwonitzer.\35\ Special Counsel Hur collected over seven 
     million documents, including e-mails, text messages, 
     photographs, videos, toll records, and other materials from 
     both classified and unclassified sources.\36\ On February 8, 
     2024, Attorney General Garland released Special Counsel Hur's 
     375-page report, which concluded that although there was 
     evidence that President Biden had ``willfully retained and 
     disclosed classified materials'' as a private citizen,\37\ 
     criminal charges were not warranted because, among other 
     things, President Biden is an ``elderly man with a poor 
     memory.'' \38\
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     \34\ Id.
     \35\ Id.
     \36\ Id. at 29.
     \37\ Id. at 1.
     \38\ Id. at 220.
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       As a part of the Committees' inquiry into whether 
     sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment 
     against President Biden, the Committees have sought 
     information regarding President Biden's mishandling of 
     classified information.\39\ The Committees have sought this 
     information to determine whether President Biden willfully 
     retained classified information and documents related to, 
     among other places, Ukraine to assist his family's business 
     dealings or to enrich his family.\40\ Doing so would be an 
     abuse of his office of public trust.
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     \39\ See Subpoena Letter, supra note 2; Letter from Rep. 
     Jamie Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability; Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary; Jason Smith, Chairman, H. Comm. on Ways & Means, 
     to Merrick Garland, Att'y Gen., Dep't of Justice (Feb. 12, 
     2024) (hereinafter ``Feb. 12 Letter''); Letter from Rep. 
     Jamie Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability, to Robert K. Hur, Special Counsel, Dep't of 
     Justice (Oct. 16, 2023).
     \40\ Id.
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       Evidence gathered during the Committees' impeachment 
     inquiry raises the prospect that President Biden willfully 
     retained classified information relating to his family's 
     business dealings in Ukraine. Then-Vice President Biden 
     served as the ``point man'' for the Obama Administration's 
     anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine at the same time that his 
     son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of a notoriously 
     corrupt Ukrainian energy company.\41\ By 2015, Ukrainian 
     prosecutors had opened an ``unlawful enrichment'' 
     investigation into Burisma and its owner, Mykola 
     Zlochevsky.\42\ Shortly thereafter, Mr. Zlochevsky and other 
     Burisma executives approached Hunter Biden, informed him that 
     the investigations placed significant pressure on the 
     company, and asked Hunter Biden if he could help alleviate 
     such pressure.\43\ Testimony provided to the Committees shows 
     that Hunter Biden subsequently ``called D.C.'' \44\ After 
     this phone call, in November and December 2015, Vice 
     President Biden purportedly took official actions concerning 
     Ukraine--including meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister 
     Arseniy Yatsenyuk--and conditioning the United States's $1 
     billion loan ``to fight corruption'' on the firing of 
     Prosecutor General Shokin.\45\ Withholding the loan guarantee 
     on this condition was contrary to the overwhelming consensus 
     of the Obama Administration.\46\
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     \41\ Alan Cullison, Bidens in Ukraine: An Explainer, Wall St. 
     J. (Sept. 22, 2019).
     \42\ Paul Sonne, et al., The gas tycoon and the vice 
     president's son: The story of Hunter Biden's foray into 
     Ukraine, Wash. Post (Sept. 28, 2019).
     \43\ Transcribed Interview of Mr. Devon Archer at 33-34 (July 
     31, 2023) (on file with Committee).
     \44\ Id. at 36.
     \45\ Glenn Kessler, Inside VP Biden's linking of a loan to a 
     Ukraine prosecutor's ouster, Wash. Post (Sept. 15, 2023).
     \46\ See id. (``On the plane, according to a person who 
     participated in the conversation, Biden `called an audible'--
     he changed the plan.'').
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       Special Counsel Hur's report shows that at least two 
     documents, identified in the report as ``A9'' and ``A10,'' 
     which were made available to the Committees in camera, 
     concerned President Biden's 2015 interactions with the 
     Ukrainian government.\47\ According to Special Counsel Hur, 
     document ``A9'' was ``a [t]elephone [c]all [s]heet setting 
     forth the purpose of and talking points for a call with 
     Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk,'' and document ``A10'' 
     was a ``document in the format of a transcript documenting 
     the substance of a December 11, 2015[,] call between [Vice 
     President] Biden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.'' 
     \48\ Given that Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine 
     were still active when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, 
     President Biden's retention of these classified documents 
     raises questions about whether he purposefully took them when 
     he left office in order to benefit his family.
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     \47\ Hur Report, supra note 4, at A-2.
     \48\ Id.
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       There is also the prospect that President Biden in general 
     willfully retained classified documents in order to enrich 
     himself and his family. President Biden's 2017 memoir, 
     Promise Me, Dad, discussed, among other things, President 
     Biden's thoughts on foreign policy.\49\ While working with 
     Zwonitzer on his memoir, President Biden read from classified 
     materials ``verbatim,'' and such classified materials 
     included notes on matters of foreign policy, ``meeting notes 
     summariz[ing] the actions and views of U.S. military leaders 
     and CIA director relating to a foreign country,'' ``notebook 
     entries related to many classified meetings, including 
     National Security Council meetings, CIA briefings, Department 
     of Defense briefings, and other meetings and briefings with 
     foreign policy officials.'' \50\ Notably, Special Counsel 
     Hur's report found that President Biden received an advance 
     of $8 million to produce a memoir.\51\ To the extent that 
     President Biden willfully took classified information when he 
     left office in order to help him write a book and make a 
     large amount of money for himself and his family, that could 
     constitute an abuse of his office of public trust.
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     \49\ See, e.g., id. at 97.
     \50\ Id. at 97-106.
     \51\ Id.
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       On February 12, 2024, approximately four days after the 
     release of Special Counsel Hur's report, the Chairs of the 
     Judiciary Committee, the Oversight Committee, and the 
     Committee on Ways and Means sent a letter to Attorney General 
     Garland requesting four categories of documents and records: 
     (1) all documents and communications, including audio and 
     video recordings, related to the Special Counsel's interview 
     of President Biden; (2) all documents and communications, 
     including audio and video recordings, relating to the Special 
     Counsel's interview of Zwonitzer; (3) the documents 
     identified as ``A9'' and ``A10'' in Appendix A of Special 
     Counsel Hur's report, which relate to President Biden's 
     December 11, 2015, call with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister 
     Arseniy Yatsenyuk; and (4) all communications between or 
     among representatives of the Department, including the Office 
     of the Special Counsel, the Executive Office of the 
     President, and President Biden's personal counsel referring 
     or relating to Special Counsel Hur's report.\52\
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     \52\ Feb. 12 Letter, supra note 39.
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       On February 16, 2024, the Department responded to the 
     Committees' February 12 letter but failed to produce any of 
     the requested material--stating, instead, that it was 
     ``working to gather and process'' responsive documents.\53\ 
     The Department offered no timeframe or commitment for the 
     production of requested documents and information.\54\ 
     Accordingly, on February 27, 2024, the Judiciary Committee 
     and the Oversight Committee issued identical subpoenas to 
     Attorney General Garland compelling the production of the 
     four categories of materials:
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     \53\ Letter from Asst. Attorney Gen. Carlos Felipe Uriarte, 
     U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on Oversight & Accountability, et al. (Feb. 16, 2024).
     \54\ Id.
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       1. All documents and communications, including audio and 
     video recordings, related to Special Counsel Robert Hur's 
     interview of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.;
       2. All documents and communications, including audio and 
     video recordings, related to Special Counsel Hur's interview 
     of Mr. Mark Zwonitzer;
       3. The documents identified as ``A9'' and ``A10'' in 
     Appendix A of Special Counsel Hur's report, which relate to 
     President Biden's December 11, 2015 call with then-Ukrainian 
     Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk; and
       4. All communications between or among representatives of 
     the Department of Justice, including the Office of the 
     Special Counsel, the Executive Office of the President, and 
     President Biden's personal counsel referring or relating to 
     Special Counsel Hur's report.\55\
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     \55\ Subpoena Letter, supra note 2.
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       The subpoenas set a return date of March 7, 2024. On that 
     date, the Department produced an incomplete set of documents 
     comprising only correspondence exchanged between President 
     Biden's legal counsel and the Department, along with an offer 
     to review two classified documents in camera.\56\ Two days 
     later, the Committees notified the Department that its 
     initial production in response to the subpoenas was 
     inadequate.\57\ In this letter, the Committees specifically 
     noted that the Department had failed to produce unredacted 
     transcripts and audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's 
     interviews of President Biden or Zwonitzer.\58\ Because 
     Special Counsel Hur was scheduled to testify in front of the 
     Judiciary Committee on March 12, 2024, the Committees offered 
     to accept a production of all materials responsive to the 
     Committees' subpoenas by March 11, 2024, at 3:00 p.m.\59\ The 
     Department failed to

[[Page H3742]]

     comply with the Committees' revised deadline,\60\ and instead 
     informed the Committees that an ``interagency review'' for 
     classified and confidential information was pending.\61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \56\ Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Dep't of Justice, 
     to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Mar. 
     7, 2024); Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Dep't of Justice, 
     to Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability (Mar. 7, 2024); DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000001-0000032.
     \57\ Letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, to Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice (Mar. 9, 2024) (hereinafter 
     ``Mar. 9 Letter.'').
     \58\ Id.
     \59\ Id.
     \60\ Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Dep't of Justice, 
     to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Mar. 
     12, 2024); Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant 
     Att'y Gen., Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Dep't of 
     Justice, to Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight 
     & Accountability (Mar. 12, 2024) (collectively ``March 12 
     Letters'').
     \61\ Letter from Hon. Merrick Garland, Att'y Gen., U.S. Dep't 
     of Justice, to Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on the Judiciary, and Rep. Jason Smith, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on Ways and Means at 2 (Feb. 16, 2024); Email from 
     Office Staff, Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Dep't of 
     Justice, to Comm. Staff, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Mar. 11, 
     2024, 3:12 p.m.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On March 12, 2024, a little more than two hours before 
     Special Counsel Hur's scheduled testimony in front of the 
     Judiciary Committee, the Department produced to the 
     Committees two redacted transcripts of Special Counsel Hur's 
     interviews with President Biden.\62\ Significantly, the 
     Department failed to produce the audio recordings of the 
     interviews. In its letter accompanying the two redacted 
     transcripts, which was transmitted to the Committees at 7:45 
     a.m., the Department represented to the Committees that it 
     had just completed the ``standard interagency review 
     process'' earlier that morning, thereby allowing the material 
     to be released.\63\ Despite the Department's representation, 
     however, it was apparent that several news outlets had 
     received and reviewed the transcripts before they were 
     produced to the Committees.\64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \62\ Email from Office Staff, Office of Legislative Affairs, 
     Dep't of Justice, to Comm. Staff, H. Comm. on the Judiciary 
     (Mar. 12, 2024, 7:43 a.m.) (hereinafter ``DOJ OLA 7:43 a.m. 
     Email''); Email from Office Staff, Office of Legislative 
     Affairs, Dep't of Justice, to Comm. Staff, H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary (Mar. 12, 2024, 7:44 a.m.); Email from Office 
     Staff, Office of Legislative Affairs, Dep't of Justice, to 
     Comm. Staff, H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Mar. 12, 2024, 7:45 
     a.m.); DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000033-0000290.
     \63\ March 12 Letters, supra note 60.
     \64\ Letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman. H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, to Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice (Apr. 15, 2024) (hereinafter 
     ``Apr. 15 Letter''); DOJ OLA 7:43 a.m. Email, supra note 53; 
     Mark Swanson, Rep. Jordan to Newsmax: WH Sat on Biden-Hur 
     Transcripts, Newsmax (Mar. 12, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Committees next wrote to Attorney General Garland on 
     March 25, 2024, regarding the Department's continued 
     withholding of material responsive to the Committees' 
     subpoenas, particularly the audio recordings of Special 
     Counsel Hur's interviews with President Biden and the 
     transcripts and audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's 
     interviews with Zwonitzer.\65\ The letter again reminded 
     Attorney General Garland about the legal obligations imposed 
     upon him by the Committees' subpoenas and directed him to 
     produce all responsive materials no later than 12:00 p.m. on 
     April 8, 2024 to avoid further action on this matter, 
     including the invocation of contempt of Congress 
     proceedings.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \65\ Letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the 
     Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, to Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice (Mar. 25, 2024).
     \66\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Department replied on April 8, 2024, but again flouted 
     the Committees' subpoenas, choosing instead to produce only 
     the transcripts of Special Counsel Hur's two interviews with 
     Zwonitzer, but not the audio recordings.\67\ In a letter to 
     the Committees, the Department explained why it decided to 
     withhold the audio recordings--not because of any applicable 
     legal privilege, but instead based on the Department's 
     unfounded accusations regarding the Committees' motives and 
     its self-interested determination that the audio recordings 
     were ``cumulative'' of other material already produced.\68\ 
     Rather than engaging with the Committees and addressing their 
     articulated reasons for seeking the audio recordings, the 
     Department took it upon itself to dictate to the Committees 
     what materials fulfilled the House's informational needs.\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \67\ Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on the Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on Oversight & Accountability (Apr. 8, 2024) 
     (hereinafter ``Apr. 8 Letter''); DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000291-556.
     \68\ Apr. 8 Letter, supra note 67.
     \69\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Committees addressed the Department's excuses for 
     failing to comply with the subpoenas in a subsequent letter 
     to Attorney General Garland dated April 15, 2024, writing 
     that his response to the subpoenas suggests he is 
     ``withholding records for partisan purposes and to avoid 
     political embarrassment for President Biden.'' \70\ In that 
     letter, the Committees rejected the Department's unsupported 
     assertion that the audio recordings were ``cumulative,'' 
     explaining how audio recordings are materially distinct from 
     written transcripts and reminding the Attorney General that 
     federal courts have held that Congress requires ``all 
     relevant evidence'' in an impeachment inquiry.\71\ The 
     Committees also pointed out that the Department has asserted 
     no constitutional or legal privilege shielding the disclosure 
     of the audio recordings and that any applicable privilege had 
     been waived by the release of the written transcripts to the 
     media.\72\ The Committees also rejected the Department's 
     unsupported speculation about the Committees' motives for 
     obtaining the audio recordings, explaining their evidentiary 
     value and highlighting the Department's hypocritical 
     insistence on a standard of compliance here that it would 
     never allow for a private party.\73\ The Committees offered 
     the Department until April 25 to produce the withheld 
     materials or else they would consider invoking contempt of 
     Congress proceedings.\74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \70\ Apr. 15 Letter, supra note 64.
     \71\ Id. at 2-3.
     \72\ Id. at 3.
     \73\ Id.
     \74\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Department again refused to comply. On April 25, 2024, 
     the Department responded to the Committees' letter and 
     argued, among other things, that the Committees ``have not 
     articulated a legitimate congressional need to obtain audio 
     recordings from Mr. Hur's investigation[,]'' and that 
     releasing the audio recordings ``would harm law enforcement 
     and the evenhanded administration of justice'' because it 
     ``would compound the likelihood that future prosecutors will 
     be unable to secure th[e] level of cooperation'' that was 
     important to Special Counsel Hur's investigation.\75\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \75\ Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on the Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman. H. 
     Comm. on Oversight & Accountability (Apr. 25, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   The Attorney General's Failure to Produce the Subpoenaed Records 
                           Warrants Contempt

       The Committees have articulated the impeachment and 
     legislative purpose for their subpoenas to the Attorney 
     General. The Department, at the Attorney General's direction, 
     continues to withhold relevant records that have been 
     subpoenaed--despite the Committee's repeated attempts to 
     explain the valid basis for seeking the records.
       In the two months since the Committees' initial requests to 
     the Department, and following the release of Special Counsel 
     Hur's report, the Department has produced only five letters 
     from President Biden's White House and personal counsel to 
     the Department, one letter from the Department to President 
     Biden's White House and personal counsel, redacted 
     transcripts of Special Counsel Hur's two interviews with 
     President Biden, and redacted transcripts of Special Counsel 
     Hur's two interviews with Zwonitzer. Additionally, the 
     Department has made available two classified documents in 
     camera to the Committees.
       The Department's production of letters and redacted 
     transcripts do not relieve it of its obligation to produce 
     all responsive records, including the audio recordings of 
     Special Counsel Hur's interviews with President Biden and 
     Zwonitzer.\76\ During his ``dozens of hours of interviews 
     with Zwonitzer,'' President Biden ``read from notebook 
     entries related to many classified briefings'' along with 
     ``foreign policy issues in Ukraine, Central America, and 
     Iraq. . . .'' \77\ Further, the boxes of documents discovered 
     in President Biden's personal possession included classified 
     materials regarding foreign policy issues in, among other 
     places, Ukraine, China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and 
     Egypt.\78\ In his interviews with Special Counsel Hur, 
     President Biden discussed some of these and other foreign 
     policy issues as well as the retention and handling of the 
     documents containing some of this classified information.\79\ 
     Similarly, Zwonitzer discussed President Biden's description 
     and recollection of these issues during his interviews with 
     Special Counsel Hur.\80\ Although the Department has produced 
     transcripts of President Biden's and Zwonitzer's interviews 
     with Special Counsel Hur, it has failed to produce the audio 
     recordings of the interviews.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \76\ Subpoena Letter, supra note 2; Mar. 9 Letter, supra note 
     57.
     \77\ Hur Report, supra note 4, at 97, 106.
     \78\ Id. at A-1-22.
     \79\ See Recorded Interview Between Special Counsel Robert K. 
     Hur, et al., and President Joseph R. Biden. Jr., at 132-36, 
     DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000164-68 (Oct. 8, 2023); see Recorded Interview 
     Between Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, et al., and President 
     Joseph R. Biden, Jr., at 31-32, 49-54, DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000222-
     23, 240-45 (Oct. 9, 2023).
     \80\ See Recorded Interview Between Special Counsel Robert K. 
     Hur, et al., and Mr. Mark Zwonitzer at 123-27, DOJ-HJC-HUR-
     0000413-17 (July 31, 2023); see Recorded Interview Between 
     Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, et al., and Mr. Mark Zwonitzer 
     at 42-47, DOJ-HJC-HUR-0000518-23 (Jan. 4, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interviews of 
     President Biden and Zwonitzer are of superior evidentiary 
     value regarding the specific issues the Committees are 
     investigating. While the text of the Department-created 
     transcripts purport to reflect the words uttered during these 
     interviews, they do not reflect important verbal context, 
     such as tone or tenor, or nonverbal context, such as pauses 
     or pace of delivery. For instance, when interviewed, a 
     subject's pauses and inflections can provide indications of a 
     witness's ability to recall events,\81\ or whether the 
     individual is intentionally giving evasive or nonresponsive 
     testimony to investigators. The verbal nuances in President 
     Biden's answers about his mishandling of classified 
     information would assist the Committees' inquiry into whether 
     he abused his office of public trust for his family's 
     financial gain.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \81\ Hur Report, supra note 3, at 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       This verbal nuance is also important to the Committees' 
     legislative oversight investigation. Special Counsel Hur 
     concluded that although there was evidence that President 
     Biden's conduct satisfied the elements of willfully retaining 
     classified information, justice would not be served by 
     indicting President Biden because he would appear to

[[Page H3743]]

     a jury to be a ``sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a 
     poor memory.'' \82\ President Biden's personal attorneys and 
     the White House Counsel's office have contested Special 
     Counsel Hur's assessment.\83\ However, Special Counsel Hur 
     stood by his assessment during his sworn testimony before the 
     Judiciary Committee.\84\ The transcripts provided to the 
     Committee are insufficient to arbitrate this dispute as to 
     President Biden's mental state, an issue which goes directly 
     to his culpability and whether Special Counsel Hur 
     appropriately pursued justice by declining to bring an 
     indictment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \82\ Id. at 219.
     \83\ Betsy Woodruff Swan, White House lawyers wrote Garland 
     slamming Hur's report before its' release, Politico (Feb. 15, 
     2024).
     \84\ Hearing on Hur Report, supra note 10, at 18 (``My 
     assessment in the report about the relevance of the 
     President's memory was necessary and accurate and fair.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       This is especially important because while Special Counsel 
     Hur declined to bring charges against President Biden, at the 
     same time, the Department, through another Special Counsel's 
     office, is prosecuting a former President and declared 
     candidate for that office for allegedly mishandling 
     classified information.\85\ The Committee must assess whether 
     Special Counsel Hur's declination decision, which was based 
     on President Biden's poor mental state, was consistent with 
     the Department's commitment to impartial justice or whether 
     legislative reforms are necessary regarding Special Counsel 
     investigations because they are not leading to impartial 
     outcomes. The transcripts produced by the Department, due to 
     their inherent limitations, are not sufficient for that 
     purpose.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \85\ Katherine Faulders, et al., Timeline: Special counsel's 
     investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents, 
     ABC News (Apr. 5, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       In short, the audio recordings would offer unique and 
     important information to advance the Committees' impeachment 
     inquiry and inform the Judiciary Committee as to the need for 
     legislative reforms to the operations of the Department or 
     the conduct of Special Counsel investigations. Moreover, 
     contrary to the Department's assertion that the audio 
     recordings are ``cumulative'' of the transcripts, an audio 
     recording is the best evidence of a witness interview. Where 
     audio recordings and transcripts diverge, because of 
     ``inflection in a speaker's voice or by inaccuracies in the 
     transcript,'' the audio recordings, not the transcripts, 
     control.\86\ Such a divergence does occur and, in fact, it 
     occurred very recently with President Biden. A video and 
     audio recording taken of President Biden's speech on April 
     24, 2024, reflects him reading a teleprompter instruction to 
     pause, saying: ``Imagine what we could do next. Four more 
     years, pause.'' \87\ However, the official White House 
     transcript of that same speech initially did not reflect that 
     President Biden uttered the word ``pause.'' \88\ In this 
     case, the video and audio recording is the best evidence of 
     the words that President Biden actually spoke.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \86\ Don Zupanec, Using Transcripts of Recordings as a 
     Demonstrative Aid, 23 No. 7 Fed. Litigator 13 (July 2008) 
     (``The tape recording is evidence for you to consider. The 
     transcript, however, is not evidence.''). See, e.g., United 
     States v. Hogan, No. 2:06-CR-10, 2008 WL 2074112, at *1 (E.D. 
     Tenn. May 14, 2008) (``[T]his Court will instruct the jury as 
     to the limited use of the transcripts, as the transcripts are 
     not the evidence but the audio recordings are the actual 
     evidence.'').
     \87\ See Anders Hagstrom, Biden appears to read script 
     instructions out loud in latest teleprompter gaffe: `Four 
     more years, pause,' Fox News (Apr. 24, 2024).
     \88\ See The White House, Remarks by President Biden at the 
     North America's Building Trades Union National Legislative 
     Conference (Apr. 24, 2024), https://web.archive.org/web/
 20240425002537/https://www.whitehouse.gov/brefing-room/
speeches-remarks/2024/04/24/remarks-by-president-biden-at-
the-north-americas-building-trades-unions-national-
legislative-conference/ (``Folks, imagine what we can do 
     next. Four . . . more years (inaudible).''). The White House 
     subsequently updated the transcript after public attention on 
     the omission. The White House, Remarks by President Biden at 
     the North America's Building Trades Union National 
     Legislative Conference (Apr. 24, 2024), https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/04/24/
remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-north-americas-building-
trades-unions-national-legislative-conference/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       While the Department has claimed that production of the 
     audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interviews with 
     President Biden and Zwonitzer to the Committees is not 
     necessary because ``any information in [the audio] files that 
     is relevant to the Committees' stated purposes is cumulative 
     of the information'' produced in the provided transcripts, 
     the Department's own actions cut against this view.\89\ 
     During Watergate, for example, the Department subpoenaed 
     audio recordings of conversations between President Nixon and 
     his advisors. Although the President publicly released more 
     than 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of these conversations 
     after the subpoena was issued, the Department maintained the 
     subpoena for the audio recordings. In United States v. Nixon, 
     the Supreme Court rejected President Nixon's attempt to quash 
     that subpoena.\90\ The Department has relied upon this 
     decision repeatedly in support of its own subpoenas,\91\ and 
     its own actions demonstrate that it understands that audio 
     recordings are not simply cumulative of transcripts produced 
     by a party that is itself under investigation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \89\ Apr. 8 Letter, supra note 67, at 4.
     \90\ U.S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974).
     \91\ See, e.g., United States v. Hussain, No. CR 16-462 
     (CRB), 2018 WL 6695574 at *2-*3 (Nov. 25, 2018) (citing Nixon 
     in opposition to a criminal defendant's motion to quash the 
     Department's subpoena).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On May 16, 2024, a mere two hours before the start of the 
     Committee's meeting to consider a resolution holding the 
     Attorney General in contempt of Congress, letters from both 
     Mr. Edward N. Siskel, Counsel to President Joe Biden, and the 
     Justice Department arrived, informing the Committee that the 
     President has asserted executive privilege over certain 
     documents and materials covered by the subpoena.\92\ The 
     Committee has numerous concerns about the validity of this 
     assertion, including:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \92\ Letter from Mr. Edward N. Siskel, Counsel to the 
     President, to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. On the 
     Judiciary, et al. (May 16, 2024) [hereinafter ``Siskel 
     Letter'']; Letter from Asst. Att'y Gen. Carlose Felipe 
     Uriarte, U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, 
     H. Comm. On the Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. On Oversight & Accountability (May 16, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       1. The President has waived executive privilege by 
     releasing the contents of his interview with Special Counsel 
     Hur to the media and public on or around March 11, 2024;
       2. The assertion of privilege is three months late and, 
     therefore, is not valid. To have been timely, any privilege 
     should have been asserted by March 7, 2024, the subpoena 
     return date; and
       3. Even if the privilege were valid, which is it not, it 
     certainly has been overcome here, as: (i) the Committee has 
     demonstrated a sufficient need for the audio recordings as 
     they are likely to contain evidence important to the 
     Committee's inquiry, and (ii) the audio recordings sought 
     cannot be obtained any other way. The audio recordings are 
     uniquely in the possession of the Justice Department.
       Further, President Biden has already waived any potential 
     assertion of executive privilege over the information 
     discussed in his interviews with Special Counsel Hur. This 
     conclusion is consistent with U.S. v. Mitchell, which 
     rejected a presidential claim of privilege over audio 
     recordings involving, as here, ``portions of subpoenaed 
     recordings which the President has caused to be reduced to 
     transcript form and published.'' \93\ Mitchell concluded that 
     ``the privilege claimed [was] non-existent since the 
     conversations are . . . no longer confidential.'' \94\ 
     Moreover, the Justice Department could have taken steps to 
     protect the confidentiality of the transcripts, but failed to 
     do so when they released them to the press prior to providing 
     them to the Committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \93\ See U.S. v. Mitchell, 377 F. Supp. 1326, 1330 (D.D.C. 
     1974) (citing Nixon v. Sirica, 487 F.2d 700, 718 (D.C. Cir. 
     1973)).
     \94\ See id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       In Mr. Siskel's letter to the Committee, the President did 
     not set forth any valid reasons for invoking executive 
     privilege. Instead, Mr. Siskel stated that the President 
     ``has a duty to safeguard the integrity and independence of 
     Executive Branch law enforcement functions and protect them 
     from undue partisan influence that could weaken those 
     functions in the future.'' \95\ Mr. Siskel also stated that 
     ``the Attorney General has warned that the disclosure of 
     materials like these audio recordings risks harming future 
     law enforcement investigations by making it less likely that 
     witnesses in high-profile investigations will voluntarily 
     cooperate.'' \96\ Both of these arguments have already been 
     evaluated and overruled by the Committee.\97\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \95\ Siskel Letter, supra note 92, at 2.
     \96\ Id.
     \97\ See Letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. On 
     the Judiciary, et al., to Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice (April 15, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Without these audio recordings, the Committee's important 
     legislative work will continue to be stymied. The audio 
     recordings are necessary to evaluate what government reform 
     is necessary within the Judice Department to avoid the 
     problems uncovered by the investigation in the future.
       The President has now asserted executive privilege. This 
     assertion, however, does not change the fact that Attorney 
     General Merrick B. Garland is in contempt of Congress today 
     for failing to turn over lawfully subpoenaed materials.
       The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to 
     dictate to Congress how to proceed with an impeachment 
     inquiry or to conduct its oversight.\98\ Rather, 
     ``congressional committees have significant discretion in how 
     they approach an investigation[,]'' \99\ and, in the context 
     of an impeachment inquiry, federal courts emphasize that 
     Congress must possess all pertinent evidence.\100\ The 
     Committees are engaged in

[[Page H3744]]

     an inquiry to assess whether to draft articles of impeachment 
     against President Biden, who is the head of the executive 
     branch of the federal government. The Committees are under no 
     obligation to rely exclusively on transcripts created, 
     refined, and produced by executive agencies subordinate to 
     the President, especially when, as here, there exists 
     superior evidence--audio recordings--that would ensure an 
     accurate and complete record of the interviews. The 
     Department's refusal to produce the audio recordings amounts 
     to a demand that the Committees trust that the Department-
     curated interview transcripts are accurate and complete, 
     despite recent evidence of an executive branch entity 
     manipulating a transcript of the President's statements and 
     only fixing the error after being caught.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \98\ See Linda D. Jellum, ``Which Is to be Master,'' the 
     Judiciary or the Legislature? When Statutory Directives 
     Violate Separation of Powers, 56 UCLA L. REV. 837, 884 (2009) 
     (``Each branch of government deserves the autonomy necessary 
     to carry out its functions within the constitutional scheme, 
     and each branch should enjoy a protected sphere of control 
     over its internal affairs. No branch should be able to 
     regulate the inner workings of any other branch. Rather, each 
     branch must be master in its own house.'') (cleaned up).
     \99\ Todd Garvey, Cong. Rsch. Serv., Committee Discretion in 
     Obtaining Witness Testimony 2 (2023).
     \100\ See In re Application of Comm. on Judiciary, 414 F. 
     Supp. 3d 129, 176 (D.D.C. 2019) (``Impeachment based on 
     anything less than all relevant evidence would compromise the 
     public's faith in the process.''), aff'd, 951 F.3d 589 (D.C. 
     Cir. 2020), vacated and remanded sub nom. on other grounds 
     DOJ v. House Comm. on the Judiciary, 142 S. Ct. 46 (2021); In 
     re Request for Access to Grand Jury Materials, 833 F.2d 1438, 
     1445 (11th Cir. 1987) (``Public confidence in a procedure as 
     political and public as impeachment is an important 
     consideration justifying disclosure.''); In re Report and 
     Recommendation of June 5, 1972 Grand Jury, 370 F. Supp. 1219, 
     1230 (D.D.C. 1974) (``It would be difficult to conceive of a 
     more compelling need than that of this country for an 
     unswervingly fair [impeachment] inquiry based on all the 
     pertinent information.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                               Conclusion

       Special Counsel Hur's report makes clear, despite its 
     conclusion that criminal charges are not warranted, that 
     President Biden willfully and unlawfully retained classified 
     materials while he was a private citizen. The Committees 
     subpoenaed Attorney General Garland to produce documents and 
     materials responsive to four specific requests concerning 
     Special Counsel Hur's investigation on February 27, 2024. To 
     date, despite numerous requests from the Committees for 
     certain audio recordings responsive to the subpoena, and a 
     specific warning that failure to produce the audio recordings 
     would result in contempt proceedings, Attorney General 
     Garland has failed to do so. Attorney General Garland's 
     willful refusal to comply with the Committees' subpoenas 
     constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the 
     appropriate United States Attorney's Office for prosecution 
     as prescribed by law.

                        Committee Consideration

       On May 16, 2024, the Committee met in open session and 
     ordered the report favorably reported to the House with an 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute by a recorded vote of 
     18 to 15, a quorum being present.

                            Committee Votes

       In compliance with clause 3(b) of House rule XIII, the 
     Committee states that the following recorded votes occurred 
     during the Committee's consideration of the Report:
       1. Vote on Amendment #1 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Nadler--failed 8 ayes to 17 nays.
       2. Vote on Amendment #2 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Johnson--failed 5 ayes to 12 nays.
       3. Vote on Amendment #3 to the Report ANS offered by Ms. 
     Dean--failed 5 ayes to 12 nays.
       4. Vote on Amendment #4 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Johnson--failed 5 ayes to 12 nays.
       5. Vote on Amendment #5 to the Report ANS offered by Ms. 
     Dean--failed 5 ayes to 12 nays.
       6. Vote on Amendment #6 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Ivey--failed 8 ayes to 9 nays.
       7. Vote on Amendment #7 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Swalwell--failed 9 ayes to 12 nays.
       8. Vote on Amendment #8 to the Report ANS offered by Ms. 
     Scanlon--failed 9 ayes to 12 nays.
       9. Vote on Amendment #9 to the Report ANS offered by Mr. 
     Armstrong--passed 15 ayes to 11 nays.
       10. Vote on favorably reporting the Report, as amended--
     passed 18 ayes to 15 nays.

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                      Committee Oversight Findings

       In compliance with clause 3(c)(1) of House rule XIII, the 
     Committee advises that the findings and recommendations of 
     the Committee, based on oversight activities under clause 
     2(b)(1) of rule X of the Rules of the House of 
     Representatives, are incorporated in the descriptive portions 
     of this report.

               New Budget Authority and Tax Expenditures

       The Committee finds the requirements of clause 3(c)(2) of 
     rule XIII and section 308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act 
     of 1974, and the requirements of clause 3(c)(3) of rule XIII 
     and section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, to 
     be inapplicable to this Report. Accordingly, the Committee 
     did not request or receive a cost estimate from the 
     Congressional Budget Office and makes no findings as to the 
     budgetary impacts of this Report or costs incurred to carry 
     out the Report.

                    Duplication of Federal Programs

       Pursuant to clause 3(c)(5) of House rule XIII, no provision 
     of this Report establishes or reauthorizes a program of the 
     federal government known to be duplicative of another federal 
     program.

                    Performance Goals and Objectives

       The Committee states that pursuant to clause 3(c)(4) of 
     House rule XIII, this Report is to enforce the Committee's 
     authority to subpoena and obtain testimony related to 
     determining whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach 
     President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., and legislative reforms 
     to the Department of Justice and its use of a special counsel 
     to conduct investigations of current and former Presidents of 
     the United States.

                          Advisory on Earmarks

       In accordance with clause 9 of House rule XXI, this Report 
     does not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax 
     benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined in clauses 
     9(d), 9(e), or 9(f) of House Rule XXI.

                            Dissenting Views

                            I. Introduction

       The Majority is clearly disappointed that Special Counsel 
     Robert Hur declined to bring charges against President Biden, 
     the latest blow in a long line of apparent disappointments. 
     After spending more than twenty million taxpayer dollars on a 
     weaponization

[[Page H3755]]

     subcommittee going nowhere, after conducting dozens of 
     witness interviews, and after reviewing millions of pages of 
     documents, the Majority has failed to find even a shred of 
     evidence of wrongdoing by the President. Their impeachment 
     investigation fizzled out before they could even clearly 
     articulate a charge. A total lack of policy accomplishments 
     only compounds their obvious frustration as we approach the 
     last months of this do-nothing Republican Congress.
       Against this backdrop of failure, the Majority makes one, 
     last-ditch effort to make it look at least like a member of 
     President Biden's cabinet did something wrong. To be clear, 
     the contempt citation the Majority recommends against U.S. 
     Attorney General Merrick Garland is an absolute farce.
       The Attorney General and the Department of Justice have 
     provided the Committee with all the information it requires 
     to conduct any legitimate oversight activity. The only 
     discrepancy between what the Majority requested and what the 
     Department has produced is a set of audio files--recordings 
     of the interviews the Special Counsel conducted with 
     President Biden and his ghost writer. The Majority has never 
     demonstrated a legitimate reason for obtaining these audio 
     files and certainly cannot justify a contempt citation on 
     this ground alone.
       For a start, the Department of Justice has long since 
     produced written transcripts of these interviews. The 
     Department has also expressed serious and legitimate concern 
     that releasing the audio files would have a chilling effect 
     on high-profile witnesses in future criminal investigations. 
     To that end, the President, in consultation with the Attorney 
     General, has claimed Executive Privilege over the remaining 
     audio files.
       It seems painfully obvious that the Majority wants these 
     recordings because they hope to find something they can use 
     to embarrass President Biden. They have certainly amplified 
     manipulated audio and video evidence for political purposes 
     in the past. The only surprise is that--after so many of 
     their members have admitted that their single motivation is 
     to provide political cover for Donald Trump--the Majority 
     still feels the need to hide behind a half-hearted interest 
     in ``vocal tone, pace, inflections, verbal nuance, and other 
     idiosyncrasies.'' What a sham.
       This contempt proceeding is a political stunt and nothing 
     more. It should be roundly defeated.

                             II. Background

       On January 12, 2023, Attorney General Merrick Garland 
     appointed Robert Hur, formerly the Trump-appointed U.S. 
     Attorney for the District of Maryland, as Special Counsel 
     charged with investigating President Biden's handling of 
     classified documents.\1\ Hur focused on five categories of 
     documents: (1) documents related to Afghanistan, in 
     particular a handwritten memo from then-Vice President Biden 
     to President Obama dated November 28, 2009, detailing his 
     concerns about deploying additional troops to the country; 
     \2\ (2) personal notebooks from the President's time as Vice 
     President; \3\ (3) certain documents found at the Penn Biden 
     Center, including documents related to negotiations about the 
     Iran nuclear deal; \4\ (4) documents found at the University 
     of Delaware dating to the President's time as a senator; \5\ 
     and (5) other documents found in the President's Delaware 
     home, including briefing binders from trips that the 
     President took while he was vice president.\6\ Over the 
     course of Hur's 15-month probe, his investigators conducted 
     173 interviews of 147 witnesses and reviewed more than seven 
     million documents. Hur submitted his 345-page final report to 
     Attorney General Garland on February 5, 2024, and Garland 
     publicly released it in full on February 8, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ Press Release, Appointment of Robert K. Hur as Special 
     Counsel, U.S. Dep't of Justice (Jan. 12, 2023), https://
www.justice.gov/d9/2023-01/Order.Appointment%20ofm 
     %20Robert%20 Hur.11223%20%28002%29.pdf.
     \2\ Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, Report on the 
     Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, Retention, and 
     Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered at Locations 
     Including the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware Private 
     Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., U.S. Dep't of 
     Justice at 145-48 (Feb. 8, 2024), https://www.justice.gov/
storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-
2024.pdf [Hereinafter Hur Report].
     \3\ Id. at 2-3.
     \4\ Id. at 256-311.
     \5\ Id. at 312-25.
     \6\ Id. at 326-33.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Hur Report exonerates President Biden of any 
     prosecutable charges. Specifically, to be charged with the 
     unauthorized retention of national defense information under 
     the Espionage Act, the government must show that ``(1) the 
     defendant had unauthorized possession of a document, writing 
     or note; (2) the document, writing, or note related to the 
     national defense; and (3) the defendant willfully retained 
     the document, writing, or note and failed to deliver it to an 
     employee or officer entitled to receive it.'' \7\ Hur found 
     that there was no evidence that the President willfully 
     retained classified information. He also found that the 
     President likely did not know certain information was 
     classified and that he likely believed he was permitted to 
     retain certain documents as personal records. Hur's report 
     also distinguished Biden's conduct from that of President 
     Trump.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \7\ Id. at 178 (citation omitted).
     \8\ Id. at 10-11, 250.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On February 7, 2024, the Attorney General notified the 
     Committee that Special Counsel Hur had concluded his 
     investigation.\9\ The following day, the Attorney General 
     produced the entire unredacted report to Congress and made it 
     available to the public.\10\ Four days later, Chairman 
     Jordan, along with House Oversight Chairman James Comer, and 
     House Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith wrote to the Attorney 
     General and demanded that he produce to the Committees:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \9\ Letter from the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y Gen., to 
     the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, et 
     al. (Feb. 7, 2024).
     \10\ See Letter from the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y Gen., 
     to the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 
     et al. (Feb. 8, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       1. All documents and communications, including audio and 
     video recordings, related to the Special Counsel's interview 
     of President Biden;
       2. All documents and communications, including audio and 
     video recordings, related to the Special Counsel's interview 
     of Mark Zwonitzer;
       3. The documents identified as ``A9'' and ``A10'' in 
     Appendix A of Mr. Hur's report, which relate to President 
     Biden's December 11, 2015 call with then-Ukrainian Prime 
     Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk; and
       4. All communications between or among representatives of 
     the Department of Justice, including the Office of the 
     Special Counsel, the Executive Office of the President, and 
     President Biden's personal counsel referring or relating to 
     Mr. Hur's report.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \11\ Letter from the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, et al. to the Hon. Merrick 
     Garland, Att'y Gen. (Feb. 12, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On February 16, 2024, the Department of Justice responded 
     noting that ``[s]everal of the materials listed in your 
     February 12 letter require review for classification and 
     protection of national defense information'' and informed the 
     Members that ``the Department will conduct a review to assess 
     confidentiality interests and will share materials with 
     Executive Branch entities with equities in the content of the 
     materials to determine whether those other entities will 
     assert any confidentiality interests of their own.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \12\ Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., to 
     the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability, et al. (Feb. 16, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On February 27, 2024, the Chairmen Jordan and Comer 
     responded to the DOJ by issuing a subpoena for the requested 
     documents, claiming that the Department ``offered no 
     timeframe by which it expected to make productions'' or ``any 
     commitment that it would produce all of the material 
     requested.'' \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \13\ Letter from the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, & the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, 
     H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, 
     Att'y Gen. (Feb. 27, 2024), https://judiciary.house.gov/
sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.
     house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-02-
     27%20JDJ%20to%20DOJ%20re%20subpoena.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The DOJ responded to the subpoena on March 7, 2024, with 
     two productions requested by the Committees: (1) the 
     documents identified as ``A9'' and ``A10'' in Appendix A of 
     the Hur Report, and (2) communications between the DOJ and 
     the Executive Office of the President or President Biden's 
     personal counsel related to Special Counsel Hur's report.\14\ 
     The DOJ also expressed disappointment that the Committee 
     chose to serve a subpoena ``less than three weeks after Mr. 
     Hur's report was transmitted to Congress and only seven 
     business days after the Department made clear it was working 
     expeditiously to respond in good faith to congressional 
     requests'' and said that the subpoena was ``premature and 
     unnecessary given the amount of information the committee has 
     already received and the Department's proactive efforts to 
     prepare for responding to congressional requests on this 
     matter.'' \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \14\  See Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., 
     to the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary 
     (Mar. 7, 2024).
     \15\ Id. at 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On March 9, 2024, the Chairmen Jordan and Comer wrote yet 
     another letter to the Attorney General claiming that the DOJ 
     had yet to fully comply with their subpoenas.\16\ On March 
     12, before Special Counsel Hur was set to testify before the 
     Judiciary Committee, the DOJ produced the transcripts of 
     Special Counsel Hur's interview of President Biden.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \16\ Letter from the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, & the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, 
     H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, 
     Att'y Gen. (Mar. 9, 2024).
     \17\ See Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., 
     to the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary 
     (Mar. 12, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On March 25, 2024, Chairmen Jordan and Comer once again 
     notified the DOJ that their compliance with the subpoena was 
     deficient and requested that the Department provide audio 
     recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interview of President 
     Biden and transcripts and audio recordings of Special Counsel 
     Hur's interview of President Biden's ghostwriter, Mark 
     Zwonitzer.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \18\ Letter from the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, & the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, 
     H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, 
     Att'y Gen. (Mar. 25, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On April 8, 2024, the DOJ provided the transcripts of 
     Special Counsel Hur's interviews of ghostwriter Mark 
     Zwonitzer, which took place on July 31, 2023 and January 4, 
     2024.\19\

[[Page H3756]]

     The DOJ's cover letter notes that the Committees have 
     responded to the Department's productions with ``escalation 
     and threats of criminal contempt.'' \20\ Further, the DOJ 
     wrote, ``We are therefore concerned that the Committees are 
     disappointed not because you didn't receive information, but 
     because you did. We urge the Committees to avoid conflict 
     rather than seek it.'' \21\ The Committees responded on April 
     15, 2024, claiming that the DOJ's ``response to the subpoenas 
     remains inadequate, suggesting that you are withholding 
     records for partisan purposes and to avoid political 
     embarrassment for President Biden.'' \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \19\ See Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., 
     to the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary & 
     the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability (Apr. 8, 2024).
     \20\ Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., to 
     the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary & 
     the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability at 1 (Apr. 8, 2024).
     \21\ Id.
     \22\ Letter from the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight & Accountability, & the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, 
     H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, 
     Att'y Gen. at 1 (Apr. 15, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On May 16, 2024, the Department responded again to the 
     Committee's requests, including the February 27, 2024, 
     subpoena, to inform the Committees ``that the President has 
     asserted executive privilege over the requested audio 
     recordings and is making a protective assertion of privilege 
     over any remaining materials responsive to the subpoenas that 
     have not already been produced.'' \23\ In an accompanying 
     letter, the Attorney General explained that the Department 
     has a vested interest in protecting ``materials related to a 
     closed criminal investigation where disclosure is likely to 
     damage future law enforcement efforts,'' which ``is the case 
     here.'' \24\ The Attorney General further expressed concern 
     that producing audio recordings to the Committees ``would 
     raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department's 
     ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal 
     investigations--in particular, investigations where the 
     voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly 
     important.'' \25\ Further, the Attorney General explained 
     that the Committees' ``articulated need for the audio 
     recordings is insufficient to meet any potentially applicable 
     standard,'' and that the audio recordings will ``not reveal 
     any information relevant to the Committees' stated needs that 
     is not available in the transcripts and other documents that 
     are already in the Committees' possession.'' \26\ The 
     Attorney General requested that the President make a 
     protective assertion of executive privilege.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \23\ Letter from Hon. Carlos F. Uriarte, Assistant Att'y 
     Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on the Judiciary, and Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. 
     Comm. on Oversight & Accountability at 1 (May 16, 2024).
     \24\ Letter from the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y Gen. to 
     The President at 1 (May 15, 2024).
     \25\ Id. at 3-4.
     \26\ Id. at 3, 9.
     \27\ Id. at 11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       On May 16, 2024, the White House also wrote to the 
     Committees explaining that ``the President's longstanding 
     commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and 
     independence of the Department of Justice and its law 
     enforcement investigations'' caused his assertion of 
     executive privilege.\28\ The White House noted the obvious 
     partisan motivations behind the Committees' actions, writing, 
     ``[t]he absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings 
     lays bare your likely goal--to chop them up, distort them, 
     and use them for partisan political purposes.'' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \28\ Letter from Edward N. Siskel, Counsel to the President, 
     to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, and 
     Rep. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability at 1 (May 16, 2024).
     \29\ Id. at 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             III. Concerns


            A. The Majority Misrepresents the Factual Record

       As a threshold matter, the Majority severely misrepresents 
     the record throughout its report in numerous material 
     respects. It is undisputed that Republican-appointed Special 
     Counsel Hur exonerated President Biden. Hur found 
     insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that 
     President Biden willfully retained any of the classified 
     documents, and in some cases that the documents themselves 
     were not even classified. The Majority's shameful portrayal 
     of President Biden as senile or ``incompetent'' is also false 
     and not supported by the special counsel's own record. 
     President Biden's age was not a material aspect of Hur's 
     decision to decline prosecution, contrary to assertions by 
     members of the Majority. Finally, the report ignores clear 
     historical context provided by the special counsel regarding 
     President Biden's retention and use of his notebook, which 
     other Presidents have done.
       Special Counsel Hur focused on five categories of documents 
     in the investigation: (1) documents related to Afghanistan, 
     in particular a handwritten memo from then-Vice President 
     Biden to President Obama dated November 28, 2009, detailing 
     his concerns about deploying additional troops to the 
     country; \30\ (2) personal notebooks from the President's 
     time as Vice President; \31\ (3) certain documents found at 
     the Penn Biden Center, including documents related to 
     negotiations about the Iran nuclear deal; \32\ (4) documents 
     found at the University of Delaware dating to the President's 
     time as a senator; \33\ and (5) other documents found in the 
     President's Delaware home, including briefing binders from 
     trips that the President took while he was vice 
     president.\34\ With respect to each category of documents, 
     Hur found that there was no evidence that the President 
     willfully retained any classified information, and in some 
     cases found that the information was not actually classified.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \30\ Id. at 145-148.
     \31\ Id. at 2-3.
     \32\ Id. at 256-311.
     \33\ Id. at 312-325.
     \34\ Id. at 326-333.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       a. Afghanistan Documents
       After leaving the vice presidency in 2017, now-President 
     Biden retained folders of documents related to the 2009 troop 
     surge in Afghanistan, including a handwritten memo he drafted 
     opposing the surge and documents supporting that position. 
     Hur determined that ``the evidence falls short of 
     establishing . . . beyond a reasonable doubt'' that Biden 
     willfully retained these classified documents.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \35\ Id. at 204.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       During a February 16, 2017, recorded interview with the 
     ghostwriter for his book, Promise Me, Biden said that he had 
     just found classified material ``downstairs,'' and the 
     context indicated that those documents might relate to 
     foreign policy in Afghanistan.\36\ At the time of the 
     interview, Biden was in a rental home in Virginia. The FBI 
     ultimately recovered the Afghanistan documents from Biden's 
     Delaware residence in 2022, while Biden was the sitting 
     president and thus authorized to have classified documents in 
     his residence. Special Counsel Hur determined that because 
     Biden was permitted to have classified documents in his 
     residence in 2022, the only possible charges related to the 
     Afghanistan documents would have had to have come from Biden 
     willfully possessing them in Virginia in 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \36\ Id. at 108.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Hur concluded that he could not prove that Biden willfully 
     possessed these documents:
       (1) Biden could have found the classified documents in 
     Virginia in 2017 and forgotten them soon after, because 
     finding classified documents so soon after leaving the vice 
     presidency ``may not have been something he found memorable. 
     Mr. Biden, after all, had seen classified documents nearly 
     every day for the previous eight years.'' \37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \37\ Id. at 205.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       (2) There was ``no definitive evidence'' that the 
     classified Afghanistan documents were stored in Biden's 
     Virginia home. \38\ Specifically, Hur determined that other 
     than the ghostwriter recording, there was ``no witness, 
     photo, text message, or other evidence [that] establishes 
     that the documents were ever stored in Virginia.'' \39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \38\ Id. at 211.
     \39\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       (3) Biden might have been referring to a folder containing 
     documents which were marked classified in 2009, but ``there 
     are serious questions about whether those particular 
     documents remain sensitive today, or when Mr. Biden met with 
     [the ghostwriter] in 2017.'' \40\ With respect to the 
     handwritten memo in particular, Hur noted that Biden ``said 
     he did not consider the memo classified when he discussed it 
     with his ghostwriter,'' and that ``the memo concerned 
     deliberations from more than seven years earlier about the 
     Afghanistan troop surge, and in the intervening years those 
     deliberations had been widely discussed in public, so Mr. 
     Biden could have reasonably expected that the memo's contents 
     became less sensitive over time.'' \41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \40\ Id. at 216.
     \41\ Id. at 221.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Hur also noted that it would be difficult for prosecutors 
     to win a case based on the Afghanistan documents because it 
     could be hard to prove that ``the documents still contain 
     sensitive national defense information'' and because at trial 
     he would present credibly to a jury.
       b. President Biden's Personal Notebooks
       As vice president, Biden regularly took handwritten notes 
     in notebooks during briefings, including during classified 
     briefings.\42\ After leaving office, he kept these notebooks 
     with him at his residence.\43\ Hur determined that he would 
     not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden 
     willfully retained the classified information in the 
     notebooks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \42\ Id. at 53.
     \43\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Specifically, Hur found that Biden ``thought his notebooks 
     were his personal property and that he was allowed to take 
     them home after his vice presidency, even if they contained 
     classified information.'' Hur noted that Biden ``was 
     emphatic, declaring that his notebooks are `my property,' and 
     that `every president before me has done the exact same 
     thing.' '' \44\ Hur noted that ``at least one former 
     president,'' Ronald Reagan, ``and the Department of Justice 
     also have concluded that a former president may keep 
     handwritten notes even if they contain classified 
     information.'' \45\ As a result, ``[m]ost jurors would likely 
     find this precedent and Mr. Biden's claimed reliance on it . 
     . . to be compelling evidence that Mr. Biden did not act 
     willfully.'' \46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \44\ Id. at 232.
     \45\ Id. at 239.
     \46\ Id. at 240-41.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page H3757]]

  

       c. Penn Biden Center Documents, University of Delaware 
           Documents, and other Documents Found in Biden's 
           Residence
       The FBI also recovered marked classified documents from 
     Biden's time as vice president at the Penn Biden Center and 
     in his Delaware residence, and documents from Biden's time as 
     senator in papers at the University of Delaware. In each 
     case, the special counsel determined that Biden did not 
     willfully retain the documents and that they were likely 
     brought to their respective locations by mistake. \47\ In 
     reaching these conclusions, the special counsel referred to 
     ``the numerous previous instances in which marked classified 
     documents have been discovered intermixed with the personal 
     papers of former Executive Branch officials and members of 
     Congress.'' \48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \47\ Id. at 12.
     \48\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Majority has doubled down on its partisan strategy to 
     portray and attack President Biden as being elderly or having 
     memory issues based on superfluous dicta in the report. The 
     Majority has, for example, repeatedly accused President Biden 
     of not being able to recall the date of his son Beau's death. 
     To be clear, Special Counsel Hur's reference to President 
     Biden's age and memory was not only wildly inappropriate, but 
     it was unsupported by the actual record. The transcript of 
     Mr. Biden's interview clearly shows he did recall the date. 
     In the interview transcripts, President Biden clearly 
     recalled the date of his son's death, saying: ``what month 
     did Beau die? Oh God, May 30.'' \49\ The special counsel's 
     decision to make this deeply personal and emotional response 
     from the President part of his report was completely out of 
     bounds and wrong. The Majority's effort to exploit this 
     response for partisan political gain is dishonest and 
     shameful.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \49\ Interview with President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. at Day 1, 
     p. 82 (October 8, 2023) (on file with Committee).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The transcript shows that President Biden was in clear 
     command of his cognitive functions and that he was able to 
     recall items with specific detail during 5 hours of interview 
     when an international crisis was unfolding in the Middle 
     East.\50\ In fact, Special Counsel Hur himself remarked that 
     the president had a ``photographic understanding and recall'' 
     in response to certain questions.\51\ President Biden was 
     also able to provide detailed and vivid responses regarding 
     events that occurred over 15 years ago including detailed 
     discussions of debates regarding Afghanistan policy.\52\ He 
     was able to provide detailed descriptions of how the Naval 
     Observatory was laid out and his office.\53\ He was able to 
     provide detailed explanations of the layout of his Wilmington 
     home.\54\ Hur observed: ``[W]e expect the evidence of Mr. 
     Biden's state of mind to be compelling,'' pointing to his 
     ``clear, forceful testimony.'' \55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \50\ The day of the interview, October 8, 2023, was the day 
     after the horrific and deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel. Mr. 
     Hur at the beginning of the interview remarked: ``. . . Well 
     Mr. President, I do want to take an additional minute and 
     thank you for being here and making this time for us. I know 
     there's a lot of other things in the world going on that 
     demand your attention.'' Id. at Day 1, p. 3. President Biden 
     subsequently acknowledged that he had ``just got off the 
     phone with Bibi Netanyahu.'' Id.
     \51\ Id. at Day 1, pp. 47, 92.
     \52\ Id. at Day 2, pp. 18-19, 49-50.
     \53\ Id. at Day 1, pp. 31-32, 32-33.
     \54\ Id. at Day 1, pp. 42-45.
     \55\ Hur Rept. supra at 233.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Majority's report repeatedly references the executive 
     summary of Special Counsel Hur's report, which claims that 
     the investigation ``uncovered evidence that Biden willfully 
     retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice 
     presidency when he was a private citizen'' including 
     ``notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about 
     issues of national security and foreign policy.'' \56\ 
     However, the Majority ignores Hur's determination that the 
     evidence would not ``meet the government's burden at trial, 
     particularly the requirement to prove that Mr. Biden intended 
     to do something the law forbids.'' \57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \56\ Id. at 1.
     \57\ Id. at 8.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Hur's investigation clearly shows that President Biden 
     ``believed he was allowed to keep the notebooks in his home'' 
     \58\ and explains that ``this view finds some support in 
     historical practice.'' \59\ According to Hur's report, ``the 
     clearest example is President Reagan, who left the White 
     House in 1989 with eight years' worth of handwritten diaries, 
     which he appears to have kept at his California home even 
     though they contained Top Secret information.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \58\ Id.
     \59\ Id. at 9.
     \60\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Like President Biden's notebooks, Reagan's diaries were 
     used as a source for several books and were read aloud in the 
     den of his home after leaving office. According to Hur's 
     report, Reagan's diaries ``served as sources for at least 
     three publications that Mr. Reagan or his representatives 
     authorized: (1) An American Life, Mr. Reagan's autobiography 
     published in 1990; (2) Dutch, a biography authored by Edmund 
     Morris and published in 1999; and (3) The Reagan Diaries, a 
     collection of the diaries themselves first published in 2007 
     after Mr. Reagan's death.'' \61\ Hur's report also 
     acknowledges that An American Life includes ``dozens of 
     verbatim quotations from Mr. Reagan's diaries'' \62\ and 
     acknowledges that ``[f]or several years after their return to 
     California, the Reagans would often sit together in their den 
     after dinner, reading aloud from their diaries and 
     reminiscing about their White House years.'' \63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \61\ Id. at 197.
     \62\ Id.
     \63\ Id. at 196; See also: Ronald Reagan, THE REAGAN DIARIES 
     x (Douglas Brinkley ed., First Harper Perennial ed. 2009).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Majority's Report falsely claims that the special 
     counsel found President Biden to have met the elements of a 
     crime, but that justice would not be served because of his 
     age and memory. \64\ During the committee markup, Members 
     even peddled blatant falsehoods that the special counsel 
     found President Trump ``incompetent'' to stand trial.\65\ 
     Nowhere in the report did Special Counsel Hur write anything 
     even close to these false accusations. As explained above, 
     Special Counsel Hur exonerated President Biden for each of 
     the categories of documents for reasons because there lacked 
     evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he had willfully 
     retained any classified documents. President Biden's memory 
     is not an element of any crime that Special Counsel Hur was 
     charged with investigating.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \64\ See, e.g., Garland Contempt Report at 13.
     \65\ For example, Rep. Van Drew stated at the May 7, 2024 
     Committee Markup: ``Because if our commander-in-chief is so 
     incompetent that he cannot stand trial, he is not fit to 
     stand trial, then he is too incompetent, for God's sake, to 
     be the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the 
     earth.'' Rep. Nehls stated: ``I want everybody to understand 
     we're either saying that our current President is cognitively 
     impaired, incompetent, unable to stand trial even though he 
     broke the law.'' Rep. Bentz commented: ``It just seems to me 
     that Mr. Hur was saying that we don't exonerate. What we are 
     going to do is say that, that the President is an older 
     gentleman who is incompetent, and we don't think we can get a 
     conviction. Therefore, we are not going to prosecute.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


 B. The Majority Has Not Articulated a Legitimate Basis to Overcome a 
    Valid Assertion of Executive Privilege to Protect Sensitive Law 
                         Enforcement Materials

       As more fully explained in the Attorney General's May 15, 
     2024 letter to the Committees, the President has 
     affirmatively asserted Executive Privilege over the audio 
     recording of the special counsel's interviews. The Attorney 
     General explained that producing those recordings ``would 
     raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department's 
     ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal 
     investigations--in particular, investigations where the 
     voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly 
     important.'' \66\ When Executive Privilege is invoked, 
     Congress, a separate and co-equal branch of government, must 
     overcome the privilege by demonstrating a legitimate 
     need.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \66\ Letter from Att'y Gen. Garland to Committees, supra n. 
     24 at 3.
     \67\ As described in the letter from the Attorney General, 
     the Committees did not meet any of the potential applicable 
     standards to overcome an assertion of Executive Privilege. 
     See id. at 7, n. 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The Majority has offered no valid explanation for why it 
     needs these audio recordings, particularly when it has 
     received copies of transcripts for both interviews. The 
     Majority's main argument is that the recordings are of 
     ``superior evidentiary value regarding the specific issues 
     the Committees are investigating.'' \68\ While Republicans 
     acknowledge possession of the transcripts, they complain that 
     those documents ``do not reflect important verbal context, 
     such as tone or tenor, or nonverbal context, such as pauses 
     or pace of delivery.'' \69\ The Majority's Report explains:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \68\ Id. at 12.
     \69\ Id. 12-13 (citation omitted).

       For instance, when interviewed, a subject's pauses and 
     inflections can provide indications of a witness's ability to 
     recall events, or whether the individual is intentionally 
     giving evasive or nonresponsive testimony to investigators. 
     The verbal nuances in President Biden's answers about his 
     mishandling of classified information would assist the 
     Committee's inquiry into whether he abused his office of 
     public trust for his family's financial gain.\70\`
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \70\ Id. at 12-13.

       These strained arguments are part of the Majority's 
     continuing efforts to rewrite Special Counsel Hur's report 
     and have nothing to do with any legitimate purpose. Notably, 
     Hur personally attended and conducted the interview with 
     President Biden, and evaluated each of these elements himself 
     before determining that President Biden could not be charged 
     with a crime. By contrast, Congress is not a law enforcement 
     agency, and there is no legitimate reason why Members of 
     Congress would need to evaluate ``tone or tenor, or nonverbal 
     context'' to second guess Special Counsel Hur's exercise of 
     prosecutorial discretion. Moreover, producing the audio files 
     risks having a chilling effect on future witnesses' 
     willingness to participate in voluntary interviews and/or to 
     be recorded.\71\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \71\ Letter from Carlos Felip Uriarte, Asst. Att'y Gen., to 
     the Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary & 
     the Hon. James Comer, Chairman, H. Comm. on Oversight & 
     Accountability at 4-5 (Apr. 8, 2024); Letter from Att'y Gen. 
     Garland to Committees, supra n. 24 at 3.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page H3758]]

       Likewise, the Majority claims that they need access to the 
     audio files as part of their ``impeachment inquiry.'' \72\ 
     But as Special Counsel Hur notes in his report, the laws on 
     handling classified material do not apply to a sitting 
     president or vice president.\73\ Accordingly, even if Hur had 
     determined that there was criminal conduct at issue here--
     which he did not--it would have pertained to the time before 
     Biden was elected president. As perennial Republican witness 
     and legal scholar Jonathan Turley noted when he testified 
     before the House Oversight Committee last year:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \72\ E.g., Garland Contempt Report at 13.
     \73\ Hur Report supra n. 2, at 15.

       The use of pre-office conduct [in impeachment proceedings] 
     remains controversial and should be approached with great 
     circumspection and abundant caution. Absent continuing 
     misconduct in office, even criminal acts that occur in 
     private life should not be the subject of an inquiry. If that 
     were the case, the House could launch investigations for any 
     crime committed by an individual as a private citizen before 
     taking office. It would convert impeachment into a 
     rationalization for subjecting officials to limitless 
     inquiries.\74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \74\ The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph 
     R. Biden, Jr.: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Oversight 
     Accountability, 118th Cong. (Sep. 28, 2023) (written 
     statement of Jonathan Turley at 31), https://docs.house.gov/
meetings/GO/GO00/20230928/116415/HHRG-118-GO00-Wstate-
TurleyP-20230928.pdf.

       The Majority incorrectly cites Supreme Court case United 
     States v. Nixon as precedent for their demand that DOJ hand 
     them audio recordings that they already have transcripts for. 
     The Nixon case is a starkly different scenario and not on 
     point to the matter of contempt before this Committee. In 
     Nixon, the dispute was over whether a special prosecutor, 
     pursuant to Rule 17(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal 
     Procedure, was able to defeat a Motion to Quash of a Grand 
     Jury subpoena seeking tape recordings and documents relating 
     to the President's conversations with aides and advisers. The 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Court held:

       We conclude that when the ground for asserting privilege as 
     to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is 
     based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it 
     cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of 
     law in the fair administration of criminal justice. The 
     generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the 
     demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending 
     criminal trial.\75\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \75\ United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 713 (U.S. 1974).

       Here, Congress is not investigating or prosecuting a 
     criminal case pursuant to Rule 17(c) of the Federal Rules. 
     Moreover, the tapes in Nixon memorialized the actual 
     commission of a crime. Eighteen and a half minutes of those 
     tapes were deleted, meaning that eighteen and a half minutes 
     of a crime were not available to investigators. By contrast, 
     the files the Majority seeks are of interviews conducted by 
     the Special Counsel. Transcripts of the interviews have 
     already been produced and there are no allegations that any 
     portions of the interviews have been deleted.
       Perhaps more fatal to their claim, the Majority has also 
     been unable to articulate exactly how the audio files would 
     aid any of their so-called stated purposes of inquiry. For 
     example, the Majority has generally claimed it desires to 
     ascertain whether President Biden ``willfully retained 
     classified information and documents . . . to assist his 
     family's business dealings or to enrich his family'' or 
     whether there were any scope limitations placed on the 
     interviews by the attorneys. Seemingly absent is any 
     explanation for how important ``verbal context'' such as 
     ``tone or tenor, or nonverbal context, such as pauses or pace 
     of delivery'' would provide the Majority with any information 
     not otherwise available in the transcript or other sources.
       The Majority has also charged that it is interested in 
     determining whether there should be reforms to the special 
     counsel regulations to ensure impartial justice or whether 
     there should be policy changes regarding the return of 
     presidential documents. Again, there is no explanation for 
     how the ``tone or tenor, or nonverbal context, such as pauses 
     or pace of delivery'' would assist the Committees in either 
     of these policy determinations. Moreover, the Majority was 
     able to secure the entire unredacted transcript of the 
     special counsel report, 5 hours of testimony by the special 
     counsel himself, and all the additional information requested 
     (including transcripts of the interview). Finally, the 
     Majority suggests it needs to ensure the accuracy of the 
     transcript. The transcript was prepared by the special 
     counsel's office for criminal proceedings where accuracy was 
     of paramount importance. The Majority has no reason to 
     believe that inaccuracies exist between the audio and 
     transcribed versions.


                               C. Waiver

       The Majority also wrongly claims that the Executive Branch 
     waived its ability to claim privilege by producing the 
     transcript of Special Counsel Hur's interviews with President 
     Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer. As the Attorney General explained in 
     his letter to the President, ``audio recordings have distinct 
     features and law enforcement uses, which implicate privacy 
     interests and risks of misuse to a greater degree than 
     transcripts, and disclosure to Congress of the recordings 
     would have a chilling effect on future cooperation in similar 
     investigations.'' \76\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \76\ Letter from the Hon. Merrick B. Garland, Att'y Gen. to 
     The President, supra n. 24, at 7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Finally, the Majority discounts that the Department has 
     released transcripts in good faith as part of the 
     accommodations practice. The Attorney General has expressed 
     concern that finding waiver here would ``incentivize less 
     Executive Branch cooperation and broader privilege 
     assertions.'' \77\ The Minority is similarly concerned that a 
     finding of waiver here risks seriously damaging the 
     accommodation process going forward.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \77\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


 D. The Department Provided the Majority all the Information it Asked 
For--The True Intention of the Majority in Seeking the Audio is to Aid 
                              Donald Trump

       As established above, the Majority's justifications for 
     overcoming the claim of privilege are both pretextual and 
     insufficient. In reality, the Department took extraordinary 
     measures to provide the Majority with all the information it 
     asked for. Within two days of Special Counsel Hur's submitted 
     report, the Department released an unredacted copy to 
     Congress. Shortly thereafter, the Department also agreed to 
     allow Mr. Hur to testify before the Committee, which he did 
     for over five hours at a March 12, 2024, hearing. In response 
     to the Majority's Subpoena, the Department: (1) made 
     available the classified documents listed as A9 and A10 in 
     the appendix of the report; (2) provided communications 
     between the Department and the Executive Office of the 
     President and President Biden's personal counsel regarding 
     Special Counsel Hur's report; (3) produced the transcripts of 
     President Biden's voluntary interview with Special Counsel 
     Hur; and (4) produced the transcripts of Mr. Zwonitzer's 
     voluntary interviews with Special Counsel Hur.
       The Majority is truly interested in the audio recordings 
     because they believe it will provide them with an opportunity 
     to embarrass President Joe Biden in the months leading up to 
     an election--a justification which falls far short of the 
     Executive Branch interests expressed by the White House and 
     the Attorney General.
       The Majority's unwillingness to respect these interests is 
     particularly ironic when members of the Majority, including 
     the Chairman himself, have previously protested similar 
     invasions of presidential privacy. Notably, Chairman Jordan 
     expressed ``grave concern'' about protecting President 
     Trump's privacy when Congress issued a subpoena to Mazars for 
     his tax records. Specifically, in an April 15, 2019 
     Memorandum, the Chairman, then serving as Ranking Member of 
     the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote:

       I have concerns that if Chairman Cummings obtains highly 
     sensitive, personal information about the President's 
     finances, he will selectively release the information 
     publicly in a misleading fashion to create a false narrative 
     for partisan political gain.\78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \78\ Republican Staff Memorandum, Chairman Cummings's 
     Unprecedented Subpoena of Mazars USA LLP, H. Comm. on 
     Oversight and Reform (April 15, 2019), https://
oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-04-15-
JDJ-to-EEC-re-Mazars-Subpoena.pdf.

       Mr. Jordan proceeded to argue that the ``partisan'' request 
     for Mr. Trump's tax records was not a responsible use of the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Committee's oversight power. He argued:

       The Supreme Court has cautioned that Congress does not have 
     `general authority to expose the private affairs of 
     individuals without justification in terms of the functions 
     of the Congress.' '' \79\ He also added, ``Quite simply, 
     Chairman Cummings seems to be seeking this sensitive, 
     personal information in a pursuit to satisfy his preconceived 
     and unsupported conclusions.\80\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \79\ Id. (citing Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 187 
     (1957).
     \80\ Id.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Later in that same Memorandum, he stated:

       The Democrat obsession with the President and his family is 
     gravely dangerous and counterproductive to the work of our 
     Committee. The American people can now see that Democrats' 
     pursuit of the truth is clouded by their obsession with 
     attacking the President and the First Family. None of our 
     actions would be necessary if not for Chairman Cummings's 
     decision to pursue reckless, partisan investigations designed 
     to attack the President and his family.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \81\ Id.

       Moreover, while the Majority has argued that the Committee 
     needs audio files from the Department because they ``are the 
     best evidence of witness interviews,'' the Majority has 
     refused to release even basic transcripts to the American 
     people from nearly all the 120 transcribed interviews the 
     Committee has taken to date. The Majority has also refused to 
     provide audio and video copies of the transcribed interviews 
     to the Minority. The reason is self-evident--the Majority 
     does not care about the ``best evidence'' of a witness 
     interview when it might contradict or disprove its cherry-
     picked and manipulated Committee reports or out-of-context 
     sound bites leaked to the media for partisan political gain.

[[Page H3759]]

  



                             E. Amendments

       During the markup of this report, various amendments were 
     offered to correct or provide context to the highly partisan 
     language of the report, which were all defeated on party 
     lines.
       I offered an amendment to reflect the assertion of 
     Executive Privilege by the President based on his substantial 
     interest in protecting sensitive law enforcement 
     investigation files.
       Representative Johnson (D-GA) introduced an amendment 
     highlighting disturbing public gaffes by Republican 
     presidential candidate Donald Trump, which draw serious 
     concerns about his mental competency. Because the Majority 
     has fixated on their so-called need to evaluate President 
     Biden's age and memory, it is only appropriate to juxtapose 
     President Trump at a recent rally praising a fictional 
     character from the film Silence of the Lambs: ``The late, 
     great Hannibal Lecter, he's such a wonderful man.'' The 
     record should be clear that the Majority's report does not 
     appear to be concerned when a presidential candidate shows 
     serious signs of cognitive impairment if his name is Donald 
     Trump.
       Representative Dean (D-PA) offered an amendment to 
     demonstrate the Majority's proclivity to push false 
     narratives to malign their perceived political enemies with 
     the assistance of manipulated audio. The Amendment pointed 
     out that this is the true reason for the Majority's fervent 
     actions to obtain the audio tape and not because they are 
     legitimately interested in the President's ``vocal tone, 
     pace, inflections, verbal nuance, and other idiosyncrasies.'' 
     The Amendment also pointed out the devastating effects of 
     these shameful tactics, by telling the story of Ms. Nina 
     Jankowicz, who appeared for a deposition before the committee 
     last year.\82\ Years earlier, Ms. Jankowicz had participated 
     in an hour-long roundtable in which she was asked about a 
     nascent Twitter program through which users could add context 
     to misleading tweets. In the full video, she explained what 
     the program was and criticized it. After Ms. Jankowicz was 
     appointed to a position at DHS, the Chairman retweeted a 
     sliced-and-diced one minute clip of her comments which made 
     it sound like she endorsed the program and mocked President 
     Trump's Twitter followers. In reality, she did neither of 
     these things. But the Chairman tweeted this video with, 
     quote, ``1984'' as the sole caption, a reference to George 
     Orwell's novel. The Chairman's tweet was subsequently 
     amplified by others, and Ms. Jankowicz faced serious threats, 
     including death threats hurled at her while she was in her 
     third trimester of pregnancy.\83\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \82\ Deposition of Nina Jankowicz (Apr. 10, 2023), https://
judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-
judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/
Jankowicz%20Transcript_Redacted.pdf.
     \83\ Id.; Heidi Przybyla, `A surreal experience': Former 
     Biden `disinfo' chief details harassment, Politico (Mar. 8, 
     2023), https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/08/former-biden-
disinfo-chief-details-harassment-00085981.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Representative Johnson offered an amendment showing that 
     MAGA Republicans have spent $20 million on a committee 
     investigating conspiracy theories that has yielded nothing. 
     This is true despite holding 10 hearings before the Select 
     Weaponization of the Federal Government--six of which have 
     been on the same topic--120 transcribed depositions and 
     depositions, 555 hours of staff and witness time in these 
     transcribed interviews and depositions, more than 60 
     subpoenas to executive branch agencies and private entities, 
     and the solicitation of over 3,000,000 pages of documents 
     from agencies and private entities. Even after all this 
     activity, MAGA Republicans have failed in its efforts to find 
     any impeachable offense committed by President Biden or 
     misconduct in his administration. This has not stopped right 
     wing media, however, from excoriating the Committee for not 
     doing enough this Congress. This Amendment was offered to add 
     context and accuracy to the report by adding additional 
     backdrop about this protracted and over the top 
     investigation.
       Representative Dean offered an amendment proving that 
     President Biden did in fact remember the date of his son 
     Beau's death during the interview with Special Counsel Hur. 
     This amendment sought to set the record straight and point 
     out that Hur's remarks on that exchange were inaccurate, 
     grotesque, and gratuitous. The Majority's efforts to repeat 
     that mischaracterization for political ends is even more 
     distasteful.
       Representative Ivey (D-MD) introduced an amendment to 
     provide factual accuracy to the record regarding the stark 
     differences between former President Trump's criminal 
     mishandling of documents versus the circumstances that led to 
     a special counsel investigation into President Biden. Special 
     Counsel Hur noted there were material distinctions between 
     the two scenarios. Hur noted there are ``serious aggravating 
     facts'' in the Trump case.\84\ ``Most notably, after being 
     given multiple chances to return classified documents and 
     avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. 
     According to the indictment, he not only refused to return 
     the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice 
     by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about 
     it.'' \85\ ``In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified 
     documents to the National Archives and the Department of 
     Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations 
     including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview, and in 
     other ways cooperated with the investigation.'' \86\ The 
     amendment was offered to illustrate that, unlike President 
     Biden, Donald Trump intentionally and flagrantly took and 
     concealed highly classified documents. Mr. Trump's actions 
     are extremely serious and warrant the 32 counts of Willful 
     Retention of National Defense Information, Conspiracy to 
     Obstruct Justice, and Making False Statements brought against 
     him. The Majority's efforts to conflate the two cases is 
     morally bankrupt and dishonest. It is, in fact, the Majority 
     that seeks to discredit and undermine the fair administration 
     of justice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \84\ Hur Report, supra n. 2, at 11.
     \85\ Id.
     \86\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Representative Swalwell (D-CA) introduced an amendment 
     stating that no Member may be permitted to hold any other 
     person in contempt of congress unless they themselves have 
     provided the testimony that has been required of them 
     regarding their participation in the planning and execution 
     of the events that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 
     2021. The purpose of the Amendment was to show the irony that 
     at least two committee members of Majority have been asked to 
     comply with a subpoena related to January 6.
       Representative Scanlon (D-PA) introduced an amendment 
     pointing out that the Majority has no legitimate purpose in 
     furthering their impeachment inquiry because impeachment is 
     not available. As Special Counsel Hur noted specifically in 
     his report, the laws on handling classified material do not 
     apply to a sitting president or vice president. Accordingly, 
     even if Hur had determined that there was criminal conduct at 
     issue here--which he did not--it would have pertained to the 
     time before Biden was elected president. The Majority's 
     perennial witness and legal scholar Jonathan Turley confirmed 
     when he testified before the House Oversight Committee last 
     year that ``even criminal acts that occur in private life 
     should not be the subject of an impeachment.''

                                                   Jerrold Nadler,
                                                   Ranking Member.
  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on the 
Judiciary, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 1292) recommending that 
the House of Representatives find United States Attorney General 
Merrick B. Garland in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with a 
subpoena duly issued by the Committee on the Judiciary, and ask for its 
immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 1287, the 
resolution is considered read.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                              H. Res. 1292

       Resolved, That Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, U.S. 
     Department of Justice, shall be found in contempt of Congress 
     for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena.
       Resolved, That pursuant to 2 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 192 and 194, 
     the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall certify the 
     report of the Committee on the Judiciary, detailing the 
     refusal of Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, U.S. 
     Department of Justice, to produce documents, records, and 
     materials to the Committee on the Judiciary as directed by 
     supoena, to the United States Attorney for the District of 
     Columbia, to the end that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland 
     be proceeded against in the manner and form provided by law.
       Resolved, That the Speaker of the House shall otherwise 
     take all appropriate action to enforce the subpoena.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The resolution shall be debatable for 1 hour 
equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member 
of the Committee on the Judiciary, or their respective designees.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan) and the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Nadler) each will control 30 minutes.
  The chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).


                             General Leave

  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
to insert extraneous material on this measure.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on page 1 of his report, Special Counsel Hur said: 
``President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials 
after his vice-presidency when he was a private citizen.''
  Joe Biden not only kept information he wasn't allowed to keep, he 
shared it with people who weren't allowed to get it.

[[Page H3760]]

  On page 231, the special counsel told us why President Biden did 
this. He said: ``Mr. Biden had strong motivations to ignore the proper 
procedures for safeguarding the classified information in his 
notebooks. He had decided months before leaving office to write a 
book,'' a book for which he got paid $8 million.
  So we have motive, an $8 million motive, and we have the elements of 
the crime, knowingly keeping classified information, knowingly 
disclosing classified information.
  Despite all this, Special Counsel Hur declined to recommend 
prosecution for President Biden because Joe Biden is ``a sympathetic, 
well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.''
  On page 207 of his report, Special Counsel Hur said: ``Mr. Biden's 
memory also appeared to have significant limitations, both at the time 
he spoke to [the ghostwriter], Mr. Zwonitzer in 2017, as evidenced by 
their recorded conversations, and today, as evidenced by his recorded 
interview with our office.''
  The committees need the audio recordings to determine whether the 
Justice Department appropriately carried out justice by not prosecuting 
the President.
  Remember what they told us. The Justice Department said we are going 
to operate independent of the White House. They said we will be 
impartial, independent arbiters of the facts.
  Maybe so, but what we do know is this: One former President is being 
charged; Joe Biden is not being charged. We think we are entitled--
actually we know we are entitled to all the evidence and the best 
evidence. The transcripts alone are not sufficient evidence of the 
state of the President's memory, especially since the executive branch 
has a history of changing transcripts.
  We saw this in late April. The transcript the White House put out 
didn't match the video and audio recording of President Biden's speech, 
and only after the White House was caught did they change the 
transcript.
  In that case and in this case, the audio recording is the best 
evidence of the words that President Biden actually spoke.

                              {time}  1130

  Following the release of Special Counsel Hur's report, both the 
Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee issued subpoenas 
requiring Attorney General Garland to turn over the transcripts of the 
audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur's interviews with President 
Biden and his ghostwriter.
  To date, the Attorney General has failed to produce those recordings. 
In fact, he told us last week he wasn't going to do it, and that is why 
we are here. Despite the committee's best efforts, the Department has 
continued to withhold the audio recordings of those interviews without 
providing any constitutional or legal basis to do so.
  Just hours before the committee was set to meet and consider the 
contempt resolution, the Department notified the committee that 
President Biden had asserted, at the Attorney General's urging, 
executive privilege over the audio recordings.
  It is simple. Attorney General Garland holds information vital to the 
committee's legislative oversight and the House impeachment's inquiry. 
Remember, this body voted December 13 of last year to enter that phase 
of our oversight duty and impeachment inquiry. The Department has a 
legal obligation to turn over the requested material. Attorney General 
Garland's willful refusal constitutes contempt of Congress.
  This resolution upholds the institutional power of the House by 
recommending that the House find Attorney General Merrick Garland in 
contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the committee's 
subpoena. Our oversight and impeachment responsibilities are too 
important to allow the Attorney General to willfully disregard this.
  I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the dishonesty that we have just heard is illustrated by 
what Mr. Jordan just said, his selective quote from Mr. Hur's report. 
He said: ``Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden 
willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice-
presidency when he was a private citizen.''
  The report does say that, but he neglects a sentence a paragraph 
later: ``However, for the reasons summarized below, we conclude that 
the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable 
doubt.'' That is deceptive.
  Secondly, as the majority well knows, the President asserted 
executive privilege in this matter. Maybe that was proper, maybe not, 
but the way to contest executive privilege is not by a contempt 
resolution. It is by going to court and letting the court decide 
whether the exercise of executive privilege is warranted or not. For 
that reason also, this resolution fails.
  Mr. Speaker, the Judiciary Committee, under Republican control, has 
spent the last 18 months and 20 million taxpayer dollars in a desperate 
search to find something, anything, that they can use to damage 
President Biden and to protect Donald Trump.
  Other committees have gotten into the act as well, spending untold 
taxpayer money not to benefit the American people, not to feed hungry 
children, not to address our housing crisis, and not to improve our 
healthcare system, but on a single-minded quest to follow every 
rightwing conspiracy theory in the vain hope that it might lead to some 
evidence of wrongdoing.
  What exactly have they delivered to the American people on their 
investment? Nothing. No evidence that the conspiracies are true, no 
indictments, no impeachment, no wins of any significance. The 
Republican leadership knows that if they don't come up with something 
to show for the millions of dollars they have spent, the MAGA political 
base may stay home next November.
  They are scrambling in a desperate attempt to look like they have 
accomplished something. They were fervently hoping that Special Counsel 
Hur would indict President Biden for mishandling classified documents 
so that they could attack President Biden and misdirect the American 
people away from Donald Trump's treacherous handling of classified 
information.
  However, the special counsel cleared Mr. Biden of wrongdoing for 
reasons that have nothing to do with Mr. Hur's gratuitous and widely 
contradicted comments about the President's memory.
  What do our Republican friends do when an investigation turns up 
short? Simply put, they engage in fantasy. That is what they are doing 
here today. Unable to come up with any wrongdoing by the President, 
they have now trained their sights on the Attorney General. They accuse 
him of withholding key evidence, but the Attorney General has 
substantially complied with their every request. Sometimes he has been 
too responsive, in my opinion, given the obvious bad faith of the MAGA 
majority.
  The DOJ has produced 92,000 pages of documents since Republicans took 
control of the House last year and has made dozens of witnesses 
available for interviews, hearings, and briefings. That is more pages 
of documents and more witnesses than the Trump Justice Department 
produced to Congress in 4 years. Just last week, the Attorney General 
himself spent more than 5 hours testifying before the Judiciary 
Committee.
  With respect to the subpoena at issue in this contempt resolution, 
the Department turned over all the information Republicans asked for. 
There has been no obstruction, only cooperation. In reality, the 
Attorney General and DOJ have been fully responsive to Congress in 
every way that might be material to their long-dead impeachment 
inquiry.
  All that remains are audio files for which the President has asserted 
executive privilege. In a letter to Chairmen Jordan and Comer, the 
Department of Justice noted that producing the audio recordings would 
``raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department's ability to 
conduct . . . high-profile criminal investigations; in particular, 
investigations where the voluntary cooperation of the White House 
officials is exceedingly important.''

  The chairmen claim that they need those records to understand the 
pauses,

[[Page H3761]]

pace, and tone of the conversation. This is absurd and clearly 
pretextual. In any event, it does not outweigh the extensive concerns 
expressed by the President and the Department.
  Moreover, with respect to the recording at issue in this report, a 
complete certified transcript has already been provided to both 
committees, and no credible allegation has been made that these 
transcripts have been altered in any material way. The only thing that 
has not been introduced is the recording itself, something that in the 
wrong hands can be easily manipulated.
  That is not an idle concern. Deepfakes and misleadingly edited videos 
and recordings have proliferated in recent years. Last year, a witness 
testifying in a closed-door deposition told us that she was the victim 
of a manipulated video made by a third party but shared widely by the 
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who refused to take down the 
video even after it was abundantly clear that it was manipulated. That 
video contributed to a flood of death threats against the witness.
  This isn't really about a policy disagreement with the DOJ. This is 
about feeding the MAGA base after 18 months of investigations that have 
produced failure after failure.
  Like most of the bills House Republicans have pushed on purely 
partisan lines, this contempt resolution will do very little other than 
smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and 
decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today.
  This resolution may boost Donald Trump's spirits before his 
sentencing, but it will almost certainly not convince the Department of 
Justice to produce the one remaining file in question. Like the broader 
impeachment effort before it, this contempt resolution will have been a 
partisan stunt, destined to fail from the very start. As I said before, 
if they were really interested in getting this recording, they would 
contest the assertion of executive privilege in court, not bring a 
contempt resolution against the Attorney General.
  The American people actually need us to do important work. I am tired 
of these games, and so are the American people. I urge my colleagues to 
oppose this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Comer), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and 
a good friend.
  Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution. This is not a 
complicated matter. The Oversight and Judiciary Committees issued duly 
authorized legal subpoenas to Attorney General Garland for a certain 
set of documents, including the audio recordings of Special Counsel 
Hur's interview with President Biden.
  The Attorney General has refused to produce these audio recordings. 
Unlike what my Democratic colleagues keep claiming, this is not just 
Republicans who need these recordings for their oversight duties. Media 
outlets, including the AP, CBS, CNN, NBC, and The Washington Post, 
among others, have filed suit to get these same audio recordings as 
well because the media, like everyone else, knows there is no 
substitute for a recording of an interview. Not a transcript, not a 
summary, not the Attorney General's judgment that Congress doesn't need 
it.
  The Oversight Committee's investigation of these classified documents 
has already revealed that the White House's official timeline of events 
regarding these classified materials left out very important details.
  For instance, White House employees were entering the Penn Biden 
Center and moving documents months before the discovery of the 
classified materials by President Biden's personal attorneys in 
November 2022. One of those employees was former White House counsel 
Dana Remus. We issued a subpoena for Ms. Remus' deposition, but the 
White House has blocked Ms. Remus from speaking to the Oversight 
Committee. The White House has also blocked other White House employees 
who visited the Penn Biden Center before November 2022 from speaking to 
us.
  What is the Biden administration trying to hide?
  Attorney General Merrick Garland's refusal to produce this evidence 
establishes a clear pattern of obstruction by the DOJ to cover up 
President Biden's wrongdoing. President Biden has lied to the American 
people about his mishandling of classified documents.
  He has repeatedly denied not knowing about or being involved in his 
family's influence-peddling schemes, which the Oversight Committee can 
now show has raked in $18 million from foreign individuals and entities 
for the Biden family members, including President Biden himself. He 
also met with nearly all his family's foreign associates.
  President Biden's Department of Justice appears to be taking every 
step to insulate him from the consequences, whether it is hiding these 
audio recordings or attempting to give Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea 
deal to shield Joe Biden from facing accountability for his role in his 
family's influence-peddling schemes. This is unacceptable.
  The House of Representatives cannot serve as a necessary check on the 
Presidency if the executive branch is free to ignore the House's 
subpoenas. I urge my colleagues to hold Attorney General Merrick 
Garland in contempt of Congress.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Raskin), the distinguished ranking member of the 
Oversight and Accountability Committee.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, our colleagues invite us today to become the 
first Congress in the history of the United States to hold someone in 
contempt for complying with our demands, and their target is the 
Attorney General of the United States.

  Attorney General Garland gave us the special counsel's report on 
President Biden in full. He made the special counsel available to us in 
committee for hours of testimony, where he answered all our questions, 
and he provided the full transcript of the President's voluntary 5-hour 
interview with the special counsel, all 250 pages of it.
  The whole world can read President Biden's interview and his answers 
unedited, but that is apparently not enough. Now they want to hold the 
Attorney General in contempt for not turning over the audiotape of the 
interview that we have the verbatim transcript of.
  Why is that important? Well, in case America has lost the thread of 
this madcap wild goose chase, remember, this is an impeachment 
investigation. Do they think that the Holy Grail of the 118th Congress 
evidence of a Presidential high crime and misdemeanor is lurking in the 
pauses or the background throat clearings and sneezes on the audiotape? 
Well, of course not.
  They know there is no high crime or misdemeanor to be found because 
they have spent the last 17 months and millions of our taxpayer dollars 
looking for it, and it simply does not exist. They literally don't even 
know what they are looking for anymore.
  Why do they want it? Well, they are hoping that in the 5 hours of 
President Biden's testimony, they can find a mispronounced word or 
phrase or a brief stammer which they can then turn into an embarrassing 
political TV attack ad.
  Get it, America? That is what this is all about. Holding the Attorney 
General of the United States in contempt is one more useful distraction 
from the complete and devastating implosion of the Biden impeachment 
probe which, of course, was the number one priority of these talented 
leaders.
  Remember, they promised to reveal the greatest Presidential high 
crime and misdemeanor in American history, an act of treachery and 
deceit that dwarfs even the incitement of a violent mob insurrection 
and an attempted political coup that took place right here against our 
Constitution, our Congress, and our Vice President in this Chamber.
  However, after their truly prodigious investigation, punctuated 
admittedly by some unfortunate mishaps like Chinese spies, fake 
evidence, pornographic displays in committee, and their own witnesses 
testifying that there were no grounds for Presidential impeachment,

[[Page H3762]]

they have nothing to show for their arduous work other than one more 
debunked Russian disinformation operation and one more indicted GOP 
informant and star witness.
  Rather than admit defeat in this bumbling operation and look for some 
other way to actually aid the public good, they have decided to flail 
about in mock outrage against a series of phantom tyrants in the hopes 
of distracting everyone from this epic flop.

                              {time}  1145

  Their first distraction was to impeach Secretary Ale Mayorkas as a 
paltry consolation prize, but that pathetic decoy action blew up in 
their hands. Then, the plan was to skip the mundane work of casting 
votes and actually doing committee business to travel on a collective 
spiritual pilgrimage on Amtrak to New York City to attend the criminal 
trial of an unmentionable American felon, 1 of 19 million in the 
country.
  That strange journey to mecca also blew up in their faces when this 
mystery political false prophet was convicted unanimously by a jury of 
his peers on dozens of felony criminal counts in a fair American trial.
  They tried to salvage the credibility of this bizarre expedition by 
blaming the American justice system for being weaponized against 
Republicans, but this political extremism quickly melted away when the 
son of President Biden, the original target of their wrath, was also 
prosecuted and convicted, like another disarmed felon whose name may 
now not be spoken on the floor, apparently, by a unanimous jury of his 
peers on all counts against him.
  That trial, unlike the trial whose very existence must be sent down 
the Orwellian memory hole to save someone's hurt feelings, was actually 
tried in the Federal system.
  What is left to do now? Well, let's hold the Attorney General of the 
United States, Merrick Garland, in contempt, of course. This will be 
sure to placate an unrepentant and anonymous convicted felon from New 
York and distract everybody else for a day or two.
  I confess it is a bit rich, Mr. Speaker, to be asked to hold the 
Attorney General of the United States in contempt of Congress for 
overwhelmingly complying with the committee's demands by Members who 
voted against contempt citations for Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, 
two persons subpoenaed by the January 6th Select Committee who never 
spent a single minute with the January 6th Select Committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, Bannon and Navarro never spent a minute with 
the January 6th Committee and never turned over a single document to 
our committee. These people had zero percent compliance with Congress. 
They demonstrated true contempt, which is why they have been sentenced 
to jail.
  Chairman Comer, in his wisdom, would hold the Attorney General of the 
United States of America in contempt for what I think is 100 percent 
compliance, but in any event, it is something like 98 or 99 percent 
compliance.
  If you think a Federal official has not rendered proper compliance, 
you take them to court. You don't hold them in contempt. It is rich 
beyond measure, like billionaire rich, to be asked to hold the Attorney 
General in contempt by people who themselves received subpoenas to 
testify before the January 6th Committee who never rendered a single 
document nor a single minute of testimony to the January 6th Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Congress to reject this absurd motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Norman). The Chair would remind Members 
to refrain from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees 
for the Office of the President.
  Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  First of all, I never said I wouldn't testify in front of the January 
6th Committee. I just wanted to know what the parameters of that 
testimony were going to be. I never did say ``no'' to that.
  Second, the speaker before just said we don't know what we are 
looking for. We are looking for equal treatment under the law. Special 
Counsel Hur found that Joe Biden knowingly kept classified information 
and that Joe Biden knowingly disclosed classified information. He told 
us that on the very first page of his report, and then he told us later 
why he did so. He said he had strong motivation for ignoring classified 
procedures because he was writing a book for which he got paid $8 
million.
  Again, we have motive, and we have him knowingly disclosing 
classified information. He doesn't get charged, yet President Trump 
does. President Trump gets charged by Jack Smith, the guy who had to 
file with the court a notice saying that he actually altered the order 
of the documents he seized in the raid of the President's home. He had 
to tell the court that. The physical documents don't match up with the 
scanned documents.
  You are not allowed to change the sequence of the documents you 
seize, but Jack Smith did. Jack Smith mishandled the documents he is 
accusing President Trump of mishandling. You can't make this stuff up.
  That is what we are focused on. By the way, we are in the midst of an 
impeachment inquiry. We are entitled to the best evidence. That is why 
we want the audiotape.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Biggs), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal 
Government Surveillance.
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Special 
Counsel Hur stated that ``the evidence and the President himself put 
his memory squarely at issue.'' In his report, Special Counsel Hur 
noted that during both his and Zwonitzer's interviews with President 
Biden, the President's memory was ``significantly limited.'' President 
Biden has contested that. The Democrats contest that.
  In reality, it is the failure to fully comply with committee 
subpoenas regarding the audio recordings of the Biden and Zwonitzer 
interviews that has hindered the House's ability to adequately conduct 
oversight over Special Counsel Hur regarding his investigative findings 
and the President's retention and disclosure of classified materials, 
and it has impeded the committee's impeachment inquiry.
  The committee must assess whether Special Counsel Hur's declination 
decision, which was based on President Biden's poor mental state, was 
consistent with the Department's commitment to impartial justice or 
whether legislative reforms are necessary regarding special counsel 
investigations because they are not leading to impartial outcomes.
  In short, the audio recordings would offer unique and important 
information to advance the committee's impeachment inquiry and inform 
the Judiciary Committee as to the need for legislative reforms to the 
operations of the Department or the conduct of special counsel 
investigations.
  Those are legislative purposes. They are constitutional purposes. 
They justify us getting the audio recordings. Yet, they don't want the 
audio recordings to come forward. Why is that? It is odd, isn't it? The 
DOJ admitted in court filings 2 weeks ago that they actually did alter 
the transcript. They claim there was just filler information. Maybe 
they were duplicative words. There are blank pauses in there that were 
not noted in the transcript.
  That is why an audio recording is important because the transcripts 
do not reflect important verbal context such as tone, tenor, or 
nonverbal context such as pauses or pace of delivery, all of which went 
into the decision by Mr. Hur not to prosecute a crime that he said was 
committed.
  That prosecutorial discretion is under review by our committee, 
legitimately and constitutionally. We have the right to that audio 
recording. The Department has said they are not going to give it to 
us--odd--because the cases that deal with requiring the audio recording 
to be turned over, the long skein of cases, turn on various things like 
the audio recording is the best evidence. They say that. Odd.
  They also say that if there is tampering or any kind of editing or 
altering of the written transcript, which we

[[Page H3763]]

now know is true, then the audio recording is mandatory. That is why we 
should get it. This Department won't give it to us. Merrick Garland is 
in contempt of this Congress, and he needs to be held in contempt.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this is absurd. This is Fellini in the 
Congress.
  Comparing what Joe Biden did to what the other fellow that preceded 
him in office did in keeping documents in Mar-a-Lago in his bathroom 
and out in the fancy rooms where all of his billionaire friends go is 
like comparing somebody that writes a bad check by $2, an overdraft, to 
somebody who is a bank robber with guns, weapons, and machine guns 
going into banks and robbing money.
  Biden was a sympathetic figure, said Mr. Hur, a Republican, who 
Merrick Garland gave the duty to study that case. He was a sympathetic 
figure.
  You don't convict a crime unless there is guilt beyond a reasonable 
doubt. Mr. Hur found there could not be guilt beyond a reasonable 
doubt.
  What the other fellow did, refusing to comply with requests to give 
the classified documents up, refusing and refusing and then having to 
have a search warrant to find them, hundreds of documents, not for the 
purpose of writing a book--for somebody who can't even read a book--was 
for purposes that we don't know. We don't know what they were used for, 
but they were taken illegally and improperly.
  Merrick Garland is an honorable and good man who should be in the 
College of Cardinals and not being tried for contempt by this 
Felliniesque----
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I have not seen a more diligent and honorable 
Attorney General in the time I have served in Congress. Merrick Garland 
is a superb individual, and this is just projection, trying to throw 
things off from the other fellow, Trump, and put them on Biden.
  There is no comparison. Once again, it is like comparing a bank 
robber to a guy who wrote an overdraft.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Before recognizing Mr. Bishop, the Chair 
would remind Members again to refrain from engaging in personalities 
toward presumptive nominees for the Office of the President.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
California for yielding time.
  This matter is simple, and in its simplicity is the clarity of its 
appropriate resolution. The audio recording of President Biden's 
interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur is demeanor evidence.
  Demeanor is one's outward manner, a way of conducting oneself. One 
might say his bearing. In some circumstances, demeanor evidence is the 
most probative, powerful evidence that can be heard. Better than words, 
it can evidence credibility or evasiveness and avoidance. Especially in 
this circumstance, it can evidence a witness' capacities to observe, 
recall, and relate information accurately.
  President Biden shared classified information with his ghostwriter in 
pursuance of securing his $8 million book advance. Mr. Hur attributed 
the Justice Department's decision not to recommend prosecution of 
President Biden for misusing and mishandling classified documents on 
this and other occasions to the fact that he is an elderly man with 
poor memory.
  A raw transcript doesn't inform the Judiciary Committee sufficiently 
to evaluate the reasonableness of that determination, especially since 
President Biden hotly contested Special Counsel Hur's characterization.
  Demeanor evidence could powerfully clarify whether that exercise of 
prosecutorial discretion was politically neutral or politically 
freighted. In fact, it is the very power of the demeanor evidence in 
the audio of Biden's interview that Garland inadvertently acknowledges 
in stubbornly withholding it. If it were nothing more than a duplicate 
of the transcript, it would never have been refused.

  The Justice Department and the Attorney General have not a leg to 
stand on. Their refusal is the essence of contempt. Garland's own words 
reflect it in the hearing before the Judiciary Committee the other day. 
He said ``certain members of this committee'' have marked up a contempt 
resolution, but as I pointed out to the Attorney General, it was a 
majority of the members of the committee. He retracted those words. It 
was a majority of the committee charged by a majority of this House 
with inquiring into the existence of grounds to exercise the awesome 
constitutional power of impeachment.
  The Attorney General's reference to ``certain members'' reflects a 
political mindset that does not support withholding evidence that the 
committee seeks that is squarely relevant and essential to its inquiry.
  That defiance, the House cannot abide. Therefore, this resolution for 
contempt must pass this House.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, contempt: to hold something as beneath the 
dignity of consideration; something to be scorned; an attitude toward 
something that is inferior, worthless; open disrespect for something 
that is vile, despised, disgraced; insolence in the presence of the 
law.
  An apt description not of the subject of this motion but of those who 
bring it, not of an Attorney General who has upheld our justice system, 
who has demonstrated a respect for institutions, but of those who mock 
the idea that we are a nation of laws, not the individual.
  When Republicans line up in front of a Manhattan courthouse to 
denigrate the rule of law in the service of a now-convicted felon, that 
is contemptuous.
  When Republicans peddle the lie that Joe Biden is pulling the levers 
of Trump's Manhattan prosecution, that is contemptuous.
  When Republican committee chairmen ignore their own subpoena but 
feign indignation when the Attorney General complies with his, that is 
contemptuous. That is deserving of our scorn. That is beneath the 
dignity of this body. That is vile, disgraceful, and worthy of 
derision.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from California.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, those who bring this motion bring contempt, 
all right, but only upon themselves.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, for the first time in American history, a Presidential 
administration is trying to jail its opponent, and not just any 
opponent, but a former President of the United States.
  To pursue this objective, Mr. Biden's Attorney General approved an 
unprecedented armed raid on a former President's home, despite 
strenuous objections by career officials and the local field office 
that normally would have had jurisdiction.
  He then created a new position without the constitutional requirement 
of congressional action or Senate confirmation. He filled that position 
with one Jack Smith, despite the central role Smith had played in the 
IRS scandal that targeted and harassed Tea Party volunteers and despite 
a long history of prosecutorial misconduct.
  The cooked-up charge was the mishandling of classified documents.
  Shortly thereafter, we discovered that as Vice President, Joe Biden 
had done the same thing, yet, as President, Mr. Trump had absolute 
authority to declassify materials at will, as Vice President Joe Biden 
did not.
  As President, Mr. Trump had absolute authority to determine what 
records to keep upon leaving office. As Vice President, Joe Biden did 
not. Yet, the Biden administration's appointed special counsel in the 
Biden case concluded that although Biden had ``willfully retained and 
disclosed classified materials . . . when he was a private citizen,'' 
criminal charges were not warranted because he is ``a sympathetic, 
well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.''

[[Page H3764]]

  Well, the principal justification for this glaring double standard in 
the handling of these two cases was the interview with Mr. Biden, yet 
all we have is the unverified transcript to determine the validity of 
this otherwise inexplicable decision.
  Mr. Biden cannot claim executive privilege. This was not a policy 
discussion, and he has already released the transcript. It is vital 
that our committee know if the transcript is complete and whether it 
accurately portrays the circumstances under which that decision was 
made.
  Two Trump officials have been sentenced to prison for their failure 
to honor congressional subpoenas, and that case was far weaker than 
this one because at the time, Congress was not exercising oversight or 
considering legislation.
  In this case, the Judiciary Committee is doing both. Yet once again, 
we have this glaring legal double standard at play.
  I expect the Attorney General to thumb his nose at the citation. We 
have come to expect that of him. However, the House Judiciary Committee 
is charged with defending and upholding the rule of law and its 
fundamental principle of equal justice under the law. If we are going 
to restore them, this resolution is an indispensable step that we must 
take today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just attacked Special Counsel 
Smith. This dangerous attempt to demonize anybody who would hold Donald 
Trump accountable for his actions is despicable and it is a full-out 
assault on the basic tenets of our democracy.
  I want to remind my colleagues that these types of actions have 
consequences. They affect the lives of many men and women who have 
dedicated themselves to public service and upholding the rule of law.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a June 11, 2024, article from 
The Washington Post by the Honorable Merrick Garland titled: 
``Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end.''

                            [June 11, 2024]

          Unfounded Attacks on the Justice Department Must End

                          (By Merrick Garland)

       Merrick Garland is attorney general of the United States.
       Last week, a California man was convicted of threatening to 
     bomb an FBI field office where hundreds of agents and other 
     employees work. In one of his threats to the FBI, the man 
     wrote: ``I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would 
     be very explainable by your actions.''
       These heinous threats of violence have become routine in an 
     environment in which the Justice Department is under attack 
     like never before.
       In recent weeks, we have seen an escalation of attacks that 
     go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and 
     necessary oversight of our work. They are baseless, personal 
     and dangerous.
       These attacks come in the form of threats to defund 
     particular department investigations, most recently the 
     special counsel's prosecution of the former president.
       They come in the form of conspiracy theories crafted and 
     spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the 
     judicial process itself. Those include false claims that a 
     case brought by a local district attorney and resolved by a 
     jury verdict in a state trial was somehow controlled by the 
     Justice Department.
       They come in the form of dangerous falsehoods about the 
     FBI's law enforcement operations that increase the risks 
     faced by our agents.
       They come in the form of efforts to bully and intimidate 
     our career public servants by repeatedly and publicly 
     singling them out.
       They come in the form of false claims that the department 
     is politicizing its work to somehow influence the outcome of 
     an election. Such claims are often made by those who are 
     themselves attempting to politicize the department's work to 
     influence the outcome of an election.
       And media reports indicate there is an ongoing effort to 
     ramp up these attacks against the Justice Department, its 
     work and its employees.
       We will not be intimidated by these attacks. But it is 
     absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk 
     their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing 
     their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long 
     guided the Justice Department's work.
       In my first job at the Justice Department some 45 years 
     ago, I worked on what would become the department's first 
     edition of the Principles of Federal Prosecution. That set of 
     rules for prosecutors enshrined what every department 
     employee lives by every single day: an unwavering commitment 
     to the fair and impartial application of our laws. That 
     commitment has been sustained by dedicated career 
     professionals who serve across administrations of both 
     political parties.
       The Justice Department makes decisions about criminal 
     investigations based only on the facts and the law. We do not 
     investigate people because of their last name, their 
     political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where 
     they come from or what they look like. We investigate and 
     prosecute violations of federal law--nothing more, nothing 
     less.
       We do this not only because of the principles that have 
     long guided our work, but also because we know that our 
     democracy cannot survive without a justice system that 
     ensures the equal protection of law for all its citizens.
       The Justice Department will continue to uphold its 
     obligation under the Constitution to fiercely defend the 
     right of all Americans to peacefully express opinions, 
     beliefs and ideas. Disagreements about politics are good for 
     our democracy. They are normal.
       But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and 
     threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not 
     normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics 
     will never make up for the long-term cost to our country.
       Continued unfounded attacks against the Justice 
     Department's employees are dangerous for people's safety. 
     They are dangerous for our democracy. This must stop.

  Mr. NADLER. It is absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of 
whom risk their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing 
their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long guided the 
Justice Department's work. I would also remind my friends on the other 
side of the aisle that the conviction of Mr. Trump was in a State court 
in New York having nothing to do with the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from 
California (Mr. Swalwell).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would again remind Members to 
refrain from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for 
the Office of the President.
  Mr. SWALWELL. Mr. Speaker, this is not about the contempt of the 
Attorney General. It is about MAGA Republicans' contempt for the 
Constitution, the rule of law, and democracy. It is about who any of us 
came here to fight for.
  MAGA Republicans are fighting for one person at the cost of what your 
constituents actually care about. You are fighting for a felon. You are 
fighting for a felon.
  On this side, we are fighting for working people. We are fighting for 
the kids and the teachers and the soldiers and the cops and the 
firefighters and the bakers and the butchers, the people who go to work 
every day and count on us to do something for them; and you, you are 
working for a felon, a felon.
  Twelve of his neighbors, people in the community where he committed 
crimes, made 34 decisions, and 408 straight times they said he was 
guilty.
  Let me make it clear where we stand. We will choose families over 
felons, verdicts over vengeance, and people over politics.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from California.
  Mr. SWALWELL. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about subpoenas for just one 
second because two of your last speakers are 750-plus days in defiance 
of a subpoena. Get real when Mr. Jordan and Mr. Biggs come to this 
floor and want to talk and get all righteous about subpoenas.
  You start honoring your subpoenas, and we can talk about anyone 
else's subpoenas.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would again remind Members to 
refrain from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for 
the Office of President and to direct their remarks to the Chair.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Issa).
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to refer to the current 
President or the presumptive nominee. For my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I 
am going to refer to the history of this body because I think the study 
of the history of this body should tell Members on both sides of the 
aisle that this is an appropriate contempt. It will lead eventually to 
compliance and, again, to holding this body as a coequal branch of 
government.
  I might remind my colleagues, some of them here in the room, Mr. 
Speaker,

[[Page H3765]]

that in 2007, this body held the White House counsel on behalf of the 
President of the United States, then-President Bush, in contempt for 
refusing to show up before this very committee, Judiciary.
  In 2012, this body held a previous Attorney General--in a very 
similar situation affecting the same two committees that have been 
speaking here, Oversight and Accountability and Judiciary--Eric Holder, 
in contempt because he told us that if we would take 200-and-some 
documents, that was all that was left, and end our case, he would give 
them to us. Otherwise, he would withhold them.
  We held him in contempt, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee 
of President Obama, held several things, including that President Obama 
had clearly falsely claimed an executive privilege, probably based on 
being misled by then-Attorney General Eric Holder.
  In fact, 10,000-plus documents were turned over to the United States 
Congress. The then-Attorney General had lied. The then-Attorney General 
Eric Holder had lied to this body and to the chairman of the committee 
and ultimately was held in contempt on a bipartisan basis with 12 
Members of the other party voting for that contempt.
  After a long period of time, we managed to get the equilibrium this 
body deserves. I call, Mr. Speaker, on this body and all my colleagues 
today to live up to the standard that we learned in 2007 when a White 
House, then of a Republican, refused to deliver a witness.
  Then, in 2012, when the Attorney General claimed that we were not 
entitled to the best documents we sought and that we were entitled to 
the documents related to Fast and Furious that he believed were 
appropriate, he failed, and he failed based on a judge appointed by 
President Obama. Why?
  He failed because this body does have the obligation and the right to 
seek all of the best evidence it believes--not that the other side 
believes; it believes.
  There has been no call for an in-camera review, no call for any kind 
of compromise. Once again, we are to take the word of an Attorney 
General working for the current President that there is nothing there.
  I have watched a lot of television over the years. I am not going to 
believe these are not the droids we are looking for. This, in fact, 
could be important evidence. Whether it is or isn't, isn't germane.
  What is important is that this body, in fact, lives up to its 
obligation. I call on every Member--those on the other side who did or 
didn't join with me in 2012 but who voted in 2007 to hold the White 
House in contempt--to consider whether once again we are balancing the 
power and the rights of this body.
  Mr. Speaker, many are arguing against the best interests of the 
United States House of Representatives, and for that, shame on those 
who do.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, this contempt vote is MAGA 
Republicans' desperate attempt to save face following their many failed 
investigations, including the one about Hunter Biden's laptop.

  Do you all remember that?
  They promised Trump and the American people that they would impeach 
President Biden, but after spending more than $20 million investigating 
conspiracy theories, MAGA Republicans have nothing to show for it.
  This do-nothing Congress can't pass legislation to help the American 
people and also can't prove any wrongdoing by President Biden. They are 
running out of time and they are desperate.
  Plus, their own Presidential candidate Donald Trump just became a 
convicted felon according to a jury of his peers. MAGA Republicans are 
trying to shift the blame to someone else.
  Even though the Justice Department produced more than 92,000 pages of 
documents and made dozens of witnesses available, Republicans have made 
Attorney General Garland their scapegoat. This is a farce, and the 
American people can see right through it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind members to refrain 
from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for the 
Office of the President.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Kiley), my colleague and neighbor.
  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, this is a textbook example of the executive 
branch obstructing the oversight function of Congress.
  The committees of jurisdiction here have clearly set forth the legal 
basis for compelling disclosure of President Biden's interviews with 
Special Counsel Hur. Now the administration has agreed with us inasmuch 
as they have produced the transcripts of those recordings. However, 
they have grasped wildly for some basis on which to withhold the 
recordings themselves. The most telling is that they have given 
contradictory reasons for doing so.
  At first, they said they weren't going to hand over the recordings 
because they were cumulative of the transcripts, meaning they were so 
similar to the transcripts that we didn't need them. Later, they argued 
that, in fact, they are so different from the transcripts that one is 
privileged and the other is not.
  When you have self-contradictory arguments being made, that is a sign 
that the true purpose here is obstruction.
  Perhaps the most absurd argument we have heard is the supposed 
interest asserted by the administration for withholding the recordings, 
which is disclosing them might discourage witnesses from cooperating in 
future high-profile investigations.
  In this case, the President is not merely a witness. He is the target 
of an investigation by his own administration. By the way, Special 
Counsel Hur testified before our committee that based on that 
investigation, a reasonable juror could have voted to convict President 
Biden.

                              {time}  1215

  What is the administration arguing the interest here is? It is that 
if somewhere down the line there might be another President who is 
subject to an investigation by his own administration, then the 
argument goes that if that President knows that the transcript will be 
released, then he will sit for the interview, but if he knows there is 
a chance that a recording might be released, then he won't cooperate.
  This is an absurd proposition, Mr. Speaker, certainly not sufficient 
to override the legitimate oversight interests of the House of 
Representatives.
  Frankly, this is not how we would like to be spending floor time, but 
the recalcitrance and obstruction of this administration has made it 
necessary.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Dean).
  Ms. DEAN of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
York for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, this contempt resolution is the latest attempt to tear 
down our democracy. The Department of Justice has cooperated with 
congressional Republicans at every turn, but after 92,000 pages of 
documents, more than a dozen transcribed interviews, and a 250-page 
transcript that was verified, my colleagues still aren't satisfied.
  They are doing this in service of one man, the disgraced former 
President, in a misguided attempt to distract from his crimes. On May 
30, a jury of stranger-citizens found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 felony 
charges.
  It is beyond disheartening that a former President and now potential 
Presidential candidate, again, was convicted of coordinating ``an 
unlawful conspiracy'' to win the 2016 election and falsifying records 
to cover his tryst with an adult porn star.
  I am grateful that the rule of law prevailed, yet I am deeply 
concerned that our democratic institutions are under threat. Some of 
these attacks come from within.
  Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has said that a kangaroo court 
convicted President Trump, and Speaker Johnson called the trial a 
purely political exercise. Mr. Trump apparently pities himself as a so-
called political prisoner.
  All this is to tear down Americans' faith in the rule of law.
  Contrary to his complaints, Mr. Trump was tried and treated fairly.

[[Page H3766]]

Justice was served in a courtroom that was open and filled with 
reporters and a jury that was chosen by the prosecution and defense. 
This is the rule of law at work.
  Political rhetoric and deliberate misinformation, the likes of these 
and a dangerous many others, erode faith in our institutions and 
threaten the safety of the American people. These attacks undermine the 
rule of law, which stands to protect the rights of all people.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from Pennsylvania.
  Ms. DEAN of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, when Attorney General Garland 
was before the Judiciary Committee, he described his career upholding 
the rule of law. In his own words, that means ensuring that ``we treat 
like cases alike: that we do not have enemies or friends, that we do 
not pay attention to the political parties or the wealth or the power 
or the influence of the people that we are investigating, that we 
follow the facts and the law. This is what distinguishes this country 
from our adversaries.''
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 8\1/2\ 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from California has 6\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will, again, remind Members to 
refrain from engaging in personalities toward presumptive nominees for 
the Office of the President.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleagues discussing the rule of law, I 
find it shocking because the average American is looking across their 
country wondering what happened to the rule of law.
  I watch my fellow Texans getting destroyed by dangerous cartels and 
individuals being allowed into the United States who are terrorists and 
people moving fentanyl into the communities that killed six kids in the 
school district in which I live. That is happening every single day.
  I watched a 75-year-old woman being put in prison by a politically 
motivated judge in the District of Columbia because she protested in 
front of an abortion clinic.
  I want to say that again: This Department of Justice is putting a 75-
year-old woman in jail for 2 years who is dealing with physical 
infirmities because she was praying and protesting in front of an 
abortion clinic.
  That is astounding. That is what has happened to the rule of law. The 
American people are watching while statues are being defaced in the 
name of being pro-Palestinian, and people who are exercising their so-
called free speech rights are advancing the cause of terrorism against 
our friends in Israel.
  All this is happening right here, mere feet from the White House, and 
the American people are wondering how this world got turned upside 
down.
  Here we sit, and we are debating the issue of the Attorney General of 
the United States, Merrick Garland, coming before the House Judiciary 
Committee just a little over 1 week ago. In that hearing, a number of 
questions were asked.
  I engaged with the Attorney General. I asked the Attorney General if 
he did or did not claim privilege with respect to the transcripts of 
the audio recording in question when we were talking about Special 
Counsel Hur looking into the allegations of the abuse of classified 
materials by the President of the United States before he was 
President.
  I asked him, and he said: No, no. We did not claim executive 
privilege with respect to the transcripts.
  In a separate exchange involving the best evidence rule, the Attorney 
General was engaging with another colleague, a friend on the Judiciary 
Committee, about the best evidence rule and, in doing so, articulated 
and explained how the transcript was admissible under the best evidence 
rule, which is correct, but in doing so, he kind of gave up the game in 
which he described and said: They are the same.
  He said to the committee: They are the same.
  Now, he had just told me that they did not claim executive privilege 
with respect to the transcript. Then he said to all of us: They are the 
same. The audio recording and the transcript are the same.
  Then he proceeds to say that he must, in defending the rule of law, 
claim executive privilege on the actual audio, and then he denied the 
Members of Congress the ability in the middle of an impeachment 
inquiry, duly constituted and voted on by this body on the House floor, 
an impeachment inquiry, to then deny us the ability to listen to the 
audio.
  The fact of the matter is there is only one reason why the Attorney 
General would do that. He doesn't want us to hear it. That is why. 
There are really only two reasons why that would be the case. Either 
the transcript doesn't match the audio, or the audio is so bad that he 
doesn't want us to hear it because Special Counsel Hur put the entirety 
of his decision not to prosecute, not to pursue, and not to go after 
the President of the United States for abuse of classified materials 
entirely on the basis of what we perceive as the demeanor of the 
President. Only the audio can allow Congress the ability to determine 
the validity of that determination by the special counsel.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Vermont (Ms. Balint).
  Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, we are here today because of the Republican 
Party's unrelenting effort to get Donald Trump back into office, no 
matter the facts and no matter the law.
  For over 1 year, Judiciary Committee Republican colleagues have 
desperately sought evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. What have 
they found? They have found nothing. Nothing.
  I am sure it was disappointing for my Republican colleagues when 
Special Counsel Hur cleared the President instead of indicting him, but 
it is time to move on. We should be on the floor moving gun violence 
legislation, protecting the right to abortion, and protecting the LBGTQ 
Americans across the country who are attacked relentlessly by my 
colleagues on the other side.
  This is a colossal waste of time, but more importantly, it is 
dangerous. What they are doing is dangerous.
  When this Congress is over, the only achievements my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle will be able to point to will be the things 
that we, as Democrats, helped them to pass.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from Vermont.
  Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, it is my job, and it is all of our jobs, to 
represent constituents. I thought that is what we are all here for. I 
implore my Republican colleagues to stop putting the interests of only 
one man above the interests of Americans.
  The truth will out, and history will not look kindly on what you have 
done here.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks 
to the Chair.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, if you gave truth serum to my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle, I am pretty sure they would admit they would rather 
not be here today doing this. They would admit that Attorney General 
Merrick Garland is collateral damage in a failed effort to impeach the 
President of the United States.
  There is no honor in that, and my colleagues are, for the most part, 
I think, honorable people, so this is not something they want to do, 
but it is demanded of them nonetheless.
  Former President Trump has repeatedly threatened the House Republican 
Conference that they must impeach President Biden or else. So here we 
are.
  They found the Attorney General in contempt for providing a 
transcript, a full transcript and not an audio recording, of an 
interview from an investigation that ended up finding nothing.

[[Page H3767]]

  By the way, Mr. Speaker, the recording in question is now subject to 
executive privilege, so their fight is not even with the Attorney 
General of the United States. It is with the White House.
  I take some solace in the fact that many of my Republican friends and 
colleagues are here doing the dirty work of one individual against 
their will and better judgment. I know deep down, very deep down, they 
would rather do the honorable thing and give up this miscarriage of 
justice today.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I am ready to close when the gentleman 
is finished, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, House Republicans have spent the last 18 months in a 
futile effort to dig up dirt on President Biden, which has culminated 
in their epic failure of an impeachment inquiry. This resolution is 
nothing more than a desperate attempt to save face with the MAGA-
sphere.

  They seek to hold the Attorney General in contempt even though he has 
already turned over all the underlying information they requested in 
their subpoena. This resolution will not change that fact, but facts 
have never been the animating force behind their investigations.
  It is a show, and apparently, the show must go on even though the 
script hasn't turned out the way they wanted. Nevertheless, the reviews 
are in, and it is a flop, so I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on 
this resolution and to put an end to this farce.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the American justice system is the pride of our Nation. 
It is the envy of the world. Its central principle is the equal 
application of justice under law.
  This is why justice is depicted as blindfolded. It doesn't matter who 
comes before it; all are to be treated equally. It is this central 
principle that gives the law its legitimacy. Without it, the law 
becomes raw force devoid of legitimacy, and respect for the law gives 
way to the law of the jungle. This is the well-trodden path many 
nations before us have taken to despotism and ruin.
  It is the responsibility of the House Judiciary Committee to protect 
the rule of law and its equal application. It is our responsibility to 
guard our Nation against the convulsions that have commonly afflicted 
banana republics whenever a ruling party tries to jail its opponents.
  The radically different handling of the documents cases involving Mr. 
Trump and Mr. Biden should ring alarm bells in every corner of the 
land.
  The principal justification for this radical, unequal application of 
law is the interview that the Judiciary Committee seeks through ancient 
constitutional prerogatives.
  It is vital that we understand the whole context of this decision, to 
verify the accuracy of the transcript, and to determine the extent that 
this conversation informed the decision that strikes at the heart not 
only of our rule of law but the right of the American people to guide 
their own destiny through fair, free, and unfettered elections.
  Congress has a constitutional right and a constitutional duty to seek 
this information, and the Attorney General has a legal obligation to 
provide it, an obligation he refuses to honor.

                              {time}  1230

  This Congress has enforced this prerogative in past cases under far 
less demanding circumstances than these.
  In order to assure that we have discharged our responsibilities, we 
have to compel the Attorney General to discharge his, and that is what 
this citation seeks to do.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
resolution recommending that the House of Representatives find Attorney 
General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. This resolution is not 
only a distraction but a waste of valuable time and resources that 
could be better spent addressing the pressing needs of the American 
people.
  Firstly, this contempt vote is politically motivated and baseless. 
Attorney General Garland has consistently cooperated with Congress, 
providing over 2,500 pages of documents and making senior officials 
available for testimony. These facts underscore his commitment to 
transparency and accountability, making the charge of contempt 
unfounded.
  Furthermore, let's consider the broader implications of this 
resolution. Pursuing this baseless contempt charge diverts attention 
from the real issues that matter to working-class Americans. According 
to recent data, policies that directly impact the well-being and 
opportunities of American families should be our primary focus. For 
instance:
  Economic Support: We should be prioritizing policies that boost 
economic opportunities. The American Rescue Plan, for example, has 
already provided significant relief to millions of families. Continued 
efforts in this vein would better serve our constituents.
  Healthcare Access: Expanding access to affordable healthcare remains 
a critical need. By focusing on comprehensive healthcare reforms, we 
can ensure that every American has the coverage they need.
  Education and Workforce Development: Investing in education and 
workforce training programs is essential for the future of our economy. 
These initiatives equip Americans with the skills necessary to compete 
in a rapidly changing job market.
  Infrastructure and Clean Energy: Comprehensive infrastructure 
projects, including advancements in clean energy, create jobs and 
promote sustainable growth. These initiatives not only strengthen our 
economy but also address the urgent issue of climate change.
  Instead of engaging in politically charged actions that yield no 
tangible benefits, we must redirect our efforts toward these meaningful 
policies. Addressing these key areas will directly enhance the lives of 
working-class Americans and foster a more prosperous and equitable 
society.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this contempt resolution. Let us focus 
our energy on policies that deliver real results for our constituents, 
ensuring that we are truly serving the American people's best 
interests.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 1287, the previous question is ordered 
on the resolution.
  Pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XIX, further consideration of H. Res. 
1292 is postponed.

                          ____________________