Merrick Garland’s legal catch-22

The Republican-led House of Representatives is moving forward this week with a contempt of Congress vote against Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The vote is in response to Garland’s refusal to release the audio recordings from special counsel Robert Hur’s October interview with the president. The report issued at the conclusion of Hur’s investigation detailed his determination that, while President Joe Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” it would not be possible to prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. The 81-year-old president, according to the report, would “present himself to a jury … as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”