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The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee has officially filed a lawsuit to force Attorney General Merrick Garland to release audio tapes from President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding handling classified documents.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that the primary objective is to verify the accuracy of the interview transcript already in their possession. “We’re not trying to embarrass the president. We’re trying to get down to the facts. So that being said, we’re going to be as aggressive as we can, use every tool in our arsenal to make sure that the evidence that the House is entitled to is turned over.”

President Biden has invoked executive privilege over the tapes, a move that the Justice Department says protects Garland from repercussions for not releasing them. However, Republicans argue that since the transcript of the conversation has been made public, any claim of executive privilege is wrong.

According to Republicans, they need the audio recordings to advance their impeachment inquiry, scrutinizing whether Biden misused his office to benefit his family’s business dealings with foreign entities. Despite this, Democrats on the committee claim Republicans want the audio tapes so they can use them against President Biden in the upcoming elections.
Despite some lawmakers’ claims that they need the tapes, the DOJ has maintained that the transcripts already provided do not support the GOP’s suspicions. In an April letter, the DOJ stated, “Nothing in the interview transcripts the Department has already produced speaks to or supports the Committees’ speculation on this point, and nothing in the audio file of the same conversations would do so either.” They also argued that by releasing the tapes, President Biden’s voice could be manipulated by foreign actors with artificial intelligence.