US Justice Dept rebuffs Republican demand for audio of Biden interview

WASHINGTON - The US Justice Department on April 8 rebuffed demands by Republicans in the House of Representatives to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interviews with a special counsel whose report questioning the US leader’s memory set off a political firestorm.

Special Counsel Robert Hur angered House Republicans by deciding not to pursue criminal charges against Mr Biden, a Democrat, for retaining classified records dating back to his time serving as vice-president under Mr Barack Obama. The department

had charged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over keeping classified documents

after he left the White House.

Assistant Attorney-General Carlos Uriarte said the department had already provided all of the information sought in a congressional subpoena, including certain transcribed interviews from Mr Hur’s investigation.

“The Committees have responded with escalation and threats of criminal contempt,” he wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer. “We urge the Committees to avoid conflict rather than seek it.”

House Republicans have threatened to hold Attorney-General Merrick Garland in contempt if the department does not hand over all of the records they are seeking.

Mr Hur announced in February that

he was declining to charge Mr Biden

over knowingly taking classified documents after leaving the vice-presidency in 2017, sparking a political firestorm by noting in a report that the President had cooperated with the probe and that his “poor memory” as an elderly man would make him difficult to convict.

Spokesmen for both Mr Jordan and Mr Comer could not be immediately reached for comment.

In the department’s letter, Mr Uriarte argued that lawmakers have already received “an extraordinary amount of information” related to the Hur probe.

This included not only Mr Hur’s report and his testimony, but copies of certain classified records, transcripts of the interviews with Mr Biden and a copy of the transcript of Mr Hur’s interview with Mr Biden’s memoir ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, he said. REUTERS