Biden asserts executive privilege over Robert Hur interview tapes

President Joe Biden has undercut House Republican endeavors to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress by asserting executive privilege over tapes related to special counsel Robert Hur‘s investigation into his handling of classified documents.

The White House advised House Oversight Committee and Judiciary Committee Chairmen James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) of Biden’s decision regarding the tapes of his interview with Hur and his memoir ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, which have been subpoenaed by Comer and Jordan’s panels, through a letter from White House counsel Edward Siskel, obtained by the Washington Examiner.

“Because of the President’s longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and independence of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement investigations, he has decided to assert executive privilege over the recordings,” Siskel wrote on Thursday.

In the letter, Siskel underscored Biden’s cooperation with Hur and lawmakers interested in the special counsel’s investigation, adding the president did not assert executive privilege over Hur’s report. The White House and Biden’s personal attorneys, most notably Bob Bauer, however, did try to discourage Hur from including assessments of Biden’s memory and mental acuity in it.

“As you know, 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,” Siskel wrote. “In fact, even a past President and Attorney General from your own party recognized the need to protect this type of law enforcement material from disclosure.”

“The 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,” he added. “Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”

Siskel also criticized Comer’s hearing on Thursday, scheduled to mark up a resolution holding Garland in contempt of Congress for not handing over the tapes.

“Rather than demonstrating respect for the rule of law, this contempt proceeding is just the latest in the Committees’ damaging efforts to undermine the very independence and impartiality of the Department of Justice and criminal justice system that President Biden seeks to protect,” he wrote. “Your subpoenas and contempt threats come in the wake of the Committees’ efforts to go after
prosecutors you do not like, attack witnesses in cases you disapprove of, and demand
information from ongoing investigations and prosecutions, despite longstanding norms that these
law enforcement processes should be allowed to play out free from such political interference.”

Garland asked Biden to assert executive privilege over the tapes in his own letter on Wednesday, contending Comer and Jordan’s committees’ needs “are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.”

“We have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the committees get responses to their legitimate requests, but this is not one,” Garland told reporters on Thursday at the Justice Department. “The only thing I can do is continue to do the right thing. I will protect this building and its people.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) condemned Biden’s decision, claiming that the president “is apparently afraid for the citizens of this country and everyone to hear those tapes.”

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“They obviously confirm what the special counsel has found, and would likely cause I suppose, in his estimation, such alarm with the American people that the president is using all of his power to suppress their release and rather than defend our closest ally at war, President Biden is using his authority to defend himself politically,” Johnson told reporters.

Hur declined to prosecute Biden in February, in part because he thought a jury would find him to be “a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” with the president not remembering with precision when his son Beau died.

Cami Mondeaux contributed to this report.