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

Floor Speech

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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, 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.

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.

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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.

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