‘I will not be intimidated’: Garland to rebut contempt threats from House GOP

Biden last month exerted executive privilege to keep the recordings from public view after Garland requested he do so over concerns that releasing them could harm future efforts to get officials to cooperate with investigations and sit for taped interviews.

“Certain members of this Committee and the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means of obtaining — for no legitimate purpose — sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations,” Garland plans to tell lawmakers at the hearing, according to excerpts of his opening remarks released by his office. “This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the Justice Department’s work.”

In a letter to the House Republicans last month, the White House said transcripts of the Biden interviews with Hur have already been provided to lawmakers and accuses Republicans of wanting to “distort” the recordings for political gain. Hur concluded in a lengthy report last fall that no criminal charges were warranted against Biden for his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House as vice president in 2017.

But Hur sharply criticized Biden’s age, which Republicans used to amplify political attacks against the president as unfit for a second term.

GOP leaders called Hur’s investigation politically compromised and railed against federal charges filed by another special counsel, Jack Smith, alleging that former president Donald Trump improperly kept classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021 and failed to heed requests from investigators to return them.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Garland intends to push back against “false narratives regarding the Department’s employees and their work.”

In his prepared remarks, Garland plans to say: “I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations. I will not be intimidated. And the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”

Garland also will rebut Republicans’ criticism of Trump’s conviction last week in New York state court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged sexual relationship with an adult-film actress. Trump and his GOP allies have falsely claimed that state prosecutors brought the case at the urging of the Biden administration and the Justice Department, even though federal prosecutors had declined to pursue the matter.

“That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself,” Garland plans to say in his remarks, adding that there has been an increase in “baseless and extremely dangerous falsehoods” being spread against FBI agents and prosecutors.

“These repeated attacks on the Justice Department are unprecedented and unfounded,” Garland intends to say. “These attacks have not, and they will not, influence our decision-making.”