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WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden has asserted executive privilege to block the release of audio and video recordings from the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified materials.
The White House and Justice Department notified House Republican leaders on Thursday that the recordings would not be released.
House Republicans were considering contempt resolutions against Attorney General Merrick Garland for defying a subpoena to provide the recordings of special counsel Robert Hur interviewing Biden. Garland had publicly requested that Biden invoke executive privilege, saying providing the recordings could make it less likely for witnesses in high-profile investigations to cooperate in the future.
The White House letter says House Republicans were provided a full copy of Hur’s final report and transcripts of the interviews.
“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” Edward Siskel, counsel to the president, wrote in the letter. “Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”
Hur was appointed to investigate when classified documents were found in Biden’s home. The report on his probe, released in February, recommended that Biden face no charges for any malign conduct.
Republicans have been critical that the investigation didn’t lead to charges because former President Donald Trump faces 40 charges related to his handling of classified documents. Investigators, however, have said Biden cooperated while Trump sought to obstruct their probe and retain the documents.
Hur’s report also was controversial for Democrats as it targeted Biden’s mental faculties, including saying he was unlikely to be convicted by a jury if the classified documents case ever went to trial because he presented himself as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
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