The US Department of Justice on Friday told the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, that it would decline to pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against the attorney general, Merrick Garland, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The Republican-controlled House had voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of Joe Biden’s interview with the special counsel investigating his retention of classified documents after he was Barack Obama’s vice-president.
It was Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.
The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.
It was immediately predicted that the justice department would not pursue a prosecution.
“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,” Jerry Nadler, a New York congressman and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said during floor debate.
Johnson said the House would go to court to enforce the subpoena against Garland, for access to Biden’s special counsel audio interview.
“It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s justice department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing,” Johnson said in a statement. “This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration.”
Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about the special counsel, Robert Hur, and the classified-documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.
Hur did not recommend charges against Biden, but when he issued his report in early 2024 described the president as an elderly man with a poor memory, creating a storm in Washington.
The role of the justice department in American political life has become a huge issue in the 2024 election, with Republicans making unfounded statements that it has been “weaponized” by Biden.
In fact, the department has successfully prosecuted Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges and it is the Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who has made repeated threats to come after his political enemies should he win November’s presidential election.
Before Garland, the last attorney general held in contempt was Republican Bill Barr in 2019. That was when the Democratically controlled House voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to turn over documents related to a special counsel investigation into Trump.
Years before that under Barack Obama, the then attorney general Eric Holder was held in contempt related to the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. In each of those instances, the justice department took no action against the attorney general.
