House Republicans said on Monday the Department of Justice (DOJ) has one week to produce materials from special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Leaders of the corruption-focused impeachment inquiry into Biden wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying their committees “require certain records” from Hur’s probe and report, including transcripts and recordings of the special counsel’s two-day interview with the president.
The group, led by Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY), also demanded records that pertain to an interview with Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, documents linked to a December 2015 call Biden had with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and communications between officials related to Hur’s report.
🚨BREAKING🚨
We are giving the Justice Department until February 19 at 5p to produce the transcript of President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur and other documents included in the report that relate to our impeachment inquiry.
Americans deserve transparency… pic.twitter.com/JtVZ2LY3nz
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 12, 2024
“Please produce this information as soon as possible, but no later than 5:00 p.m. on February 19, 2024. Given the seriousness of these matters, the Committees are prepared to compel the production of this material if necessary,” the House GOP investigators wrote.
Hur’s report, which was released publicly last week, criticized Biden’s retention of classified documents while out of office following his service as a U.S. senator and then vice president. Although Hur did not recommend charges, the 388-page report said Biden exhibited memory problems that likely would preclude a jury from convicting the president.
Comer, who was joined by Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO), said the documents request will also inform oversight of the DOJ’s “commitment to impartial justice” and its handling of a documents-related investigation and prosecution into Biden’s presumptive 2024 opponent, former President Donald Trump.
“Despite clear evidence the President willfully retained and transmitted classified materials willfully, Mr. Hur recommended ‘that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,'” the trio said in their letter to Garland.
“Although Mr. Hur reasoned that President Biden’s presentation ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ who ‘did not remember when he was vice president’ or ‘when his son Beau died’ posed challenges to proving the President’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the report concluded that the Department’s principles of prosecution weighed against prosecution because the Department has not prosecuted ‘a former president or vice president for mishandling classified documents from his own administration,'” the lawmakers continued.
“The one ‘exception’ to the Department’s principles of prosecution, as Mr. Hur noted, ‘is former President Trump.’ This speaks volumes about the Department’s commitment to evenhanded justice,” the lawmakers wrote.
