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

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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