House Republicans took a key step Thursday toward holding Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of President Joe Biden‘s memoir, in contempt of Congress.
The House Judiciary Committee voted on party lines to advance a contempt resolution for Zwonitzer to the full House for a vote. All committee Democrats opposed the measure.
If the full House were to pass the resolution, Zwonitzer would be referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
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The committee had asked through the subpoena in March for Zwonitzer, who helped write Biden’s 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad, to provide records related to his work on the book.
The request came after former special counsel Robert Hur revealed in his report this year that Biden had disclosed classified information to Zwonitzer. Hur referenced audio recordings and transcripts of interviews Zwonitzer conducted with Biden. Congressional Republicans sought to obtain that material as part of their oversight of Hur’s investigation.
“To date, Zwonitzer has refused to produce any of the requested documents or materials,” the committee wrote in its contempt report.
The committee said Zwonitzer accused Republicans of issuing a request that was too “broad” and that violated his constitutional rights as an author and reporter.
In Hur’s report, the special counsel also noted that Zwonitzer initially deleted some of his recordings of Biden upon learning Hur was investigating the president’s handling of classified information. Zwonitzer told investigators he was worried about being hacked after receiving ominous and vague threats about Biden. The ghostwriter later handed over his computer and hard drive to the government, and investigators were able to recover the recordings.
Hur determined that Zwonitzer’s attempt to erase the recordings did not meet the standard for charging him with obstructing a federal investigation.
Moving forward with contempt of Congress is rare and marks a significant escalation in the House’s process of obtaining information from Zwonitzer. The House has since 2008 voted to hold 11 people in contempt of Congress, and the DOJ has declined to prosecute all but two, former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon.
The DOJ declined to comment on how it would proceed with a referral to prosecute Zwonitzer.
The House also voted this year to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. Similar to Zwonitzer, Garland refused to comply with a congressional subpoena for audio recordings of Hur’s interview with Biden, which the special counsel conducted last year as part of his investigation.
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The DOJ responded almost immediately by declining to prosecute the attorney general, citing a long history of precedent showing Garland followed DOJ protocol when he relied on executive privilege as his ultimate reason for withholding the audio. Biden made the controversial move, at Garland’s direction, to assert executive privilege over his interview with Hur, but the president has not attempted to assert privilege over his interviews from 2017 with Zwonitzer.
An attorney for Zwonitzer did not respond to a request for comment.
