DOJ Memo Says Merrick Garland Can’t Be Prosecuted for Contempt

As Twitchy reported earlier this month, former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison for defying subpoenas from the January 6 select committee. Bannon had been held in contempt of Congress … just like Eric Holder, Hunter Biden, and Merrick Garland.

However, The Hill reports that according to the Justice Department, Garland can’t be prosecuted for defying a subpoena to release the Robert Hur recordings, which must be really damning if he’d choose contempt of Congress over releasing them. He’s actually been held in contempt of Congress twice, once by the House Judiciary Committee and once by the entire House. 

The Hill reports:

An internal Justice Department (DOJ) memo argued Attorney General Merrick Garland would be protected from prosecution for contempt of Congress given President Biden’s assertion of executive privilege over audio tapes Republicans have sought by subpoena.

The 57-page memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), obtained by The Hill, lays out the case for Garland’s refusal to turn over the audio of Biden’s conversation with special counsel Robert Hur. The GOP already has a transcript of the interview.

…

“Because the committees have the transcripts of the special counsel’s interviews, the needs the committees have articulated for the recordings are plainly insufficient to overcome a privilege claim grounded in these important separation of powers concerns,” according to the memo.

“The audio recording will not reveal any information relevant to the committees’ stated needs that is not available in the transcripts.”

Then just release the audio recording, don’t write a 57-page memo.

Actually, the White House has said the transcript has very “minor differences” from the recording, as they cleaned up all the “uh”s and “um”s and repeated “I”s and “and”s. Hur said a jury would look at President Joe Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory and fail to convict because he was “well-meaning.” In other words, yes, he’s guilty of willfully retaining classified documents, some dating back to his days as a senator.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats want to “rein in” the Supreme Court with legislation, but Congress doesn’t have oversight over the Justice Department.

True, the attacks and conspiracy theories are dangerous.

And the memo only argues that there’s no precedent for it.

It’s so great that norms have been restored: the president is openly defying the Supreme Court and the attorney general is exempting himself from prosecution after being held in contempt of Congress.

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