Posted on 05/16/2024 10:48:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Justice Department's Legal Counsel Office said the recording should be considered protected by executive privilege. Chairman Comer says the claim "changes nothing" and vows to continue contempt proceedings.
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President Joe Biden on Thursday claimed the recording of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur about his retention of classified documents should not be released due to executive privilege just hours before House Republicans were set to move toward holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not releasing the recordings.
The Justice Department's Legal Counsel Office said the recording should be considered protected by executive privilege, and Garland should not be punished for not releasing it, Associate Attorney General Carlos Uriatre said.
"I write to inform you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the requested audio recordings and is making a protective assertion of privilege over any remaining materials responsive to the subpoenas that have not already been produced," Uriatre wrote in a letter Thursday, according to CNN.
"It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress," he also wrote, per the Associated Press.
"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," Counsel to the President Edward Siskel wrote in a letter to the Oversight and Judiciary Committees Thursday. Siskel also claimed providing the tapes would risk "harming future law enforcement investigations," according to the letter obtained by Just the News.
File 2024-05-16.Siskel_to_Comer_and_Jordan_re_Privilege.pdf The classified documents probe did not result in any charges being brought against the president, with Hur's report concluding that a jury would likely find him to be a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Biden's executive privilege claim would not change his committee's efforts to hold Garland in contempt.
"It's a five-alarm fire at the White House. Clearly President Biden and his advisors fear releasing the audio recordings of his interview because it will again reaffirm to the American people that President Biden's mental state is in decline. The House Oversight Committee requires these recordings as part of our investigation of President Biden's mishandling of classified documents," Comer said in a statement posted to X.
"The White House is asserting executive privilege over the recordings, but it has already waived privilege by releasing the transcript of the interview. Today's Hail Mary from the White House changes nothing for our committee. The House Oversight Committee will move forward with its markup of a resolution and report recommending to the House of Representatives that Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for defying a lawful subpoena," he added.
That’s why I’m thinking this is just bait.
They want Republicans in Congress angry and not thinking straight in an election year.
I can’t imagine what would be in that taped conversation that would help Trump win at all...which is what every bit of energy should be spent on right now.
Defeating Biden, not playing legal games about a transcript/recording that’s probably covered under EP.
I think we should be picking the battlefield, and I don’t think this is it.
Yes, this is an embarrassment for Biden, a distraction, but that is it. Time and energy should be spent elsewhere as this won’t win/lose votes.
Too late. Some of the recording is in the book he published.
Although a president has the authority to & privilege of changing the status of classified documents—which he did ... while Joe was veep, with no such authority, when he started squirreling classified docs in several locations (including his garage), Trump is being prosecuted while Joe is not, because he’s non compos mentis, whew lad.
I want off this timeline.
What a shame it would be for the entire country to hear Slow Joe, without the pep pills and carefully managed, scripted and staged appearances that desperately attempt to make out to be, well, alive.
The roughly one-third of America that approves of his disastrous presidency would by shocked to find that their hero, yes—we’re looking at you Whoopi Goldberg, is in that rough of a shape.
The rest of us will point an either laugh or shake our heads that the greatest country that ever existed on this earth is suffering from that senile, demented hand on the tiller.
No one in his group of handlers—I mean “advisors”—is blind to the fact that the emperor has no clothes but a soiled pair of Depends. So it would have shocked me if they hadn’t claimed executive privilege.
I believe that the dodge that any of this is executive level material, and parts that could be judged as “national security” swiftly edited out. I know—I edit audio for content regularly.
They will ride this until someone with more power than Slow Joe forces their hand. Which may be a good thing, the sweet spot will be a month before the elections. Then people’s most recent impression of their candidate will be a doddering, sleepy, forgetful old coot whose best days left him 50 years ago.
.......we have seen Biden stumble and plod the WH lawn, fall up and down plane stairs, get lost on a 3’ podium, babble, slur his words, tell weird stories about cannibals...... underscoring that Biden is a mentally impaired, doddering, old coot — which was affirmed by Special Counsel Hur.
So Special Counsel Robert K. Hur must now be “surprised” that Biden-—who Hur said a jury would perceive as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and thus be unlikely to convict -——is an aggressive eager debater, even meticulously setting the debate terms, appealing to voters who are anxious to reelect “an elderly man w/ a poor memory.”
Reference: Hur was appointed January 2023 by AG Garland to conduct the investigation of Biden into possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents at the U of Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and in the garage of the Wilmington, Del private residence of Joe Biden, as well as several other places........all easily accessible to influence-peddler Hunter Biden.
Now Joenothing is into his “I’m a trusted beacon of Democrat leadership” reelection act.
Must be almost time for his “resurrect my dead war hero son” act, a proven vote-getter any moron in Delaware can tell ya.
The Biden administration is simply amature hour on steriods... they haven’t got a clue. A couple of his staffers got together and thought after discussing the matter that Executive Privilege ought to prevent release. Fifty years ago they might have been correct, however, with the last 20 years of democrats going after Bush and Trump, Exec Priv doesn’t even work as intended, let alone to shield criminal activities.
That’s why I’m thinking this is just bait.
They want Republicans in Congress angry and not thinking straight in an election year.
I can’t imagine what would be in that taped conversation that would help Trump win at all...which is what every bit of energy should be spent on right now.
Defeating Biden, not playing legal games about a transcript/recording that’s probably covered under EP.
I think we should be picking the battlefield, and I don’t think this is it.
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Dead wrong. Walk and chew gum at the same time. This video is absolutely devastating. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go to these lengths to cover it up before the election.
Monitoring.......
“Hmmm....Executive Privilege for Briben, but not for Pres Trump?”
‘Gone the way of a “Non-disclosure agreement”...
Biden is invoking the little known “my little secrets” act.
An exception to the Freedom of Information Act.
Hey dumas, the transcript is out…
Judah Ben Hur is going to be his counsel???
That bad, eh?
bttt
Words on paper, a transcript, are one thing.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
A video........ priceless.............................
I think he’s trying to get Republicans to waste time on something that probably won’t amount to much even if they do get it released, but I hope you’re right and I’m wrong!
This is just SOP for Dems and does not reveal any content. They fight for every inch of the political battlefield 24/7/365.
I wonder if the transcript text is 100% complete and unedited. If we had a sound recording, that could be altered too.
Exactly, double standards
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