Castigating House Republicans by accusing them of playing politics, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte flatly rejected the latest effort to obtain the audio recording of special counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with President Joe Biden.
Hur was named to investigate the classified documents scattered hither and yon among Biden’s homes and an office he once used. He ended the investigation in February, saying the president should not face charges.
One reason given for that decision was Biden’s age and mental condition.
Hur’s report said the president “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
For weeks, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky have been asking the Department of Justice for the tapes of those interviews, most recently threatening contempt charges if they are not provided.
In Uriarte’s defiant letter to the two Republicans on Thursday — shared by Just the News — he claimed the House panels have never shown a good enough reason to get the tapes and said that even if they had one, the department was not going to share them on the grounds that the committees are up to no good.
The assistant attorney general said it was “unjustifiable for the Committees to threaten criminal contempt” when the Justice Department, in his eyes, had been cooperative.
Uriarte wrote that no “legitimate congressional need” had been shown and slapped the committees for wanting the audio files.
“The decision to sit down with investigators and prosecutors should not include a tacit invitation for the Committees to participate, comment, or apply selective hindsight,” he said.
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“It would be severely chilling if the decision to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation required individuals to submit themselves to public inquest by politicians, particularly because congressional investigations are not subject to the same standards and checks as the Department’s,” Uriarte wrote.
The prosecutor said that because he saw no reason to give lawmakers what they wanted, their motives were suspect.
“Lacking a justification for complaint — never mind contempt — in the actual record, the Committees’ threats deepen our concern that you are seeking to create a false narrative of obstruction that weakens, rather than strengthens, the American people’s confidence in our government and the rule of law,” he said.
“It also deepens our concern that the Committees’ true aim is to use law enforcement files for purposes contrary to the principles of apolitical and evenhanded administration of justice, to which we are dedicated,” Uriarte said.
A chunk of the 11-page letter said the audio file would provide no information that’s not already in transcripts given to the panels.
The letter also fired back at Comer, saying it produced classified documents for him concerning a 2015 call Biden made with a Ukrainian official while he was vice president.
“Despite the Committees’ assertion that these documents are necessary for your investigation, and despite other requestors accepting our offer to review these documents, the Chair of the Oversight Committee has not yet taken us up on our offer, which we made over two months ago,” Uriarte wrote. “Nonetheless, he has been publicly speculating (inaccurately) about their contents.”
He said that even if the panels produced a compelling reason to get the audio files, the Justice Department would not hand them over, arguing that “the production of sensitive law enforcement files from a closed matter can still harm prosecutorial decision-making, privacy and reputational interests of witnesses and uncharged parties, and sources and methods, among other law enforcement concerns that the public has a strong interest in protecting.”
Uriarte made it clear that the DOJ will not help Republicans in their efforts against Biden.
“The Committees’ inability to identify a need for these audio files grounded in legislative or impeachment purposes raises concerns about what other purposes they might serve,” he wrote, adding that the department has a “concern that the Committees may be seeking conflict for conflict’s sake.”
“We do not obtain evidence for criminal investigations so that it may later be deployed for political purposes,” Uriarte said.
In a statement on Thursday to Just the News, Comer said, “We will respond to the Department of Justice.”
