On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for his efforts to cover up the audio of Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur over his mishandling of classified documents—which is allegedly even more damning than the publicly available transcript.
"Contempt is one of U.S. lawmakers’ politically messiest and, until recent years, least-used powers. It is a tool that the House and the Senate can employ either to coerce compliance with a subpoena or to remove any obstruction from an ongoing investigation," explns the Associated Press. "By approving a contempt resolution, the House effectively recommended that Garland be prosecuted. And recent cases against allies of former President Donald Trump including Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro have proved that a contempt resolution is far from symbolic, creating the basis for a case that can sometimes hold up in court."
The Department of Justice, however, has determined that Garland is above the law, and will not be prosecuted.
“For nearly seven decades and across presidential administrations of both parties, the Executive Branch has taken the position that the criminal contempt of Congress statute … does not apply to Executive Branch officials who do not comply with a congressional subpoena based on a presidential assertion of executive privilege,” the Department of Justice said in a memo.
Does that mean Garland is in the clear? Not necessarily. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), is determined to force a vote on arresting Attorney General Merrick Garland if the DOJ does not act on a criminal contempt resolution.
Luna told Fox News Digital that she intends to force a vote on her "inherent contempt" resolution against Garland.
"As of right now, we fully intend to bring it," Luna said Tuesday before the DOJ released the memo refusing to prosecute. "I don't really have much faith in the Department of Justice. And I don't think the American people do either. But we are trying to bring back a level playing field and show that, you know, there should be accountability all the way up to the top."
"If the DOJ won't do their jobs, we're going to do it for them," she added.
And she really means it.
The House just voted to hold Garland in Contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas. If the DOJ has not indicted him by June 25, I will call a vote to hold him in inherent contempt of Congress, and he will be forced to produce the recordings or be held by the Sergeant at Arms. pic.twitter.com/xybEAA3DbE
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) June 12, 2024
According to Fox News Digital, she could force a vote on her bill.
"I'm gonna wait for the vote to happen the way that leadership wants it to happen with the criminal contempt. And then after that, that'll start the clock on our stuff," she explained.
White House Counsel Ed Siskel previously admitted that politics was the driving factor for asserting privilege over the audio. "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," he claimed. “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."
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