(ConservativeInsider.org) – All House Democrats and four Republicans joined hands to kill an inherent contempt of Congress motion against Attorney General Merrick Garland that could have fined him $10,000 per day until he surrendered President Joe Biden’s interview recordings with Special Counsel Robert Hur to Congress.
Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna managed to force the vote on her resolution on July 10 after winning enough support from her colleagues. GOP lawmakers were initially reluctant to back Luna’s original resolution that could have allowed House Sergeant At Arms to arrest the attorney general.
However, the House killed her effort by a 204-210 vote. All Democrats and 4 Republicans, including John Duarte and Tom McClintock of California and David Joyce and Mike Turner of Ohio voted against the resolution.
Meanwhile, Luna has successfully refiled the resolution and wishes to pass it through the chamber in the near future. She stated that some important Republican lawmakers who were backing her effort were absent on the voting day due to personal reasons, and their presence would help her bring Garland to justice this time around.
Almost a month ago, Republicans held Garland in regular contempt of Congress and urged the executive branch to prosecute him. President Biden, however, exerted his executive privileges on the audio recordings in question, which allowed the Department of Justice to not pursue legal avenues against its own head, Garland, for his failure to produce the tapes.
The attorney general has accused GOP lawmakers of using a serious constitutional authority for partisan purposes. He has also previously acknowledged that his department modified the transcripts of Biden’s audio tapes for clarity purposes.
Republicans believe that audio recordings will help them in the impeachment proceedings against the president and see if the transcripts provided by the DOJ really match the content of the audio.
On the other hand, some Democratic lawmakers suggested that Republicans want to access the recordings to use them against Biden in their attack ads ahead of the presidential elections.
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