House Republicans subpoenaed the Department of Justice on Tuesday for the transcript of an interview special counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Joe Biden last fall as part of his investigation into the president’s handling of classified documents.
The subpoena, issued by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees and reviewed by the Washington Examiner, directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to provide the transcript, any recordings of it, and other related material by March 7.
The chairmen of the committees, Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), wrote in a letter to Garland accompanying the subpoena that the subpoena was necessary because they viewed the DOJ’s response to their initial request for the transcript as inadequate.
The DOJ had told the committees that the department would cooperate and provide the requested materials “expeditiously,” but the department did not provide a definitive date on which it would do that, according to a DOJ letter to the chairmen obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“On February 16, the Department responded, failing to produce any of the requested material and stating instead that it was ‘working to gather and process’ responsive documents,” Comer and Jordan wrote. “The Department, however, offered no timeframe by which it expected to make any productions or, indeed, any commitment that it would produce all of the material requested.”
The DOJ had also stated in its letter to the chairmen that certain materials they asked for “require review for classification and protection of national defense information,” as well as review for “confidentiality interests.”
However, the chairmen countered that they believed “the information and documents requested are primarily unclassified” and added that the DOJ could provide classified information to them in a separate manner.
A DOJ spokesperson confirmed receipt of the subpoena but declined to comment further.
The committees initially asked the DOJ to provide the transcript of the interview, as well as any recordings or other records related to it, as part of their impeachment inquiry into whether Biden abused his power when he was vice president to help his family profit.
Hur wrote in his special counsel report that Biden not only mishandled classified information from his time as vice president and senator but that he may have done so “willfully.”
Hur’s report also contained stunning details that signaled Biden’s mental fitness is deteriorating. Hur said, for instance, that the president’s memory was poor enough that a jury may find he made an “innocent mistake” when he inappropriately retained classified material. Biden’s legal team called the inclusion of those details in the report “gratuitous.”
Hur based his assessment of Biden’s mental state largely off of the interview he conducted with Biden, and if Republicans are able to obtain a transcript or recordings of that interview, it may shed more light on Hur’s findings.
Comer and Jordan, for their part, said they want the transcript so they can assess whether the classified documents Biden retained related at all to the business dealings Joe Biden’s son Hunter and brother James pursued in foreign countries, including Ukraine and China.
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They also said they are interested to learn what, if any, restrictions Joe Biden’s attorneys sought to place on the scope of the interview.
Hur is also set to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on March 12 to testify on his investigation into the president.
