Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote a Washington Post op-ed a couple of weeks ago, calling on congressional Republicans to start showing some partisan restraint.
“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy. They are normal,” the nation’s chief law enforcement official wrote. “But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country.”
Literally the next day, House GOP members voted to hold Garland in contempt.
The stunt didn’t amount to much — Justice Department officials quickly made clear they see no reason to prosecute their boss — though some Republican lawmakers are apparently eager to take additional steps. Axios reported this morning:
A House Republican’s unsanctioned plan to force a vote on sending the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland is meeting with strong resistance within the GOP. … In addition to raising substantive concerns, the vote is reigniting long-standing frustrations from rank-and-file Republicans about hardliners bypassing leadership and forcing rogue votes on the House floor.
At issue is a letter Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida sent to her House GOP colleagues on Monday, declaring her intention to force a vote this week — whether party leaders like it or not — on an “inherent contempt” measure directed at Garland.
And what, pray tell, is an “inherent contempt” measure? In practical terms, Luna wants lawmakers to direct the House sergeant at arms to take Garland into custody — in effect, arresting the attorney general.
Such efforts are hardly ever considered — Politico spoke to a variety of members this week who didn’t even know what the tactic was — but the far-right Floridian apparently intends to try it anyway.
All of this stems from an unexpected GOP priority. Former special counsel Robert Hur investigated President Joe Biden for inadvertently taking some classified documents after his vice presidential tenure ended. Not surprisingly, the prosecutor decided not to indict the Democratic incumbent president.
Soon after, Hur wrapped up his work and released a report, including a transcript of an interview that Biden volunteered to participate in. (Donald Trump, in contrast, refused to be interviewed by either special counsel Robert Mueller or special counsel Jack Smith.)
In theory, that ended the story. In practice, however, there was one additional element that Republicans decided to pursue: the audio recording of the incumbent president’s Q&A with investigators.
The Biden administration has declined GOP lawmakers’ requests for the tape, and there’s no great mystery as to why: Officials realize that Republicans are simply looking for a political toy they can play with ahead of Election Day 2024. Former Republican Rep. Ken Buck recently admitted as much, explaining that Congress already has the transcript and relevant information, adding that his former GOP colleagues are “just looking for something for political purposes.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer went even further to prove Democrats right, declaring in a recent fundraising appeal that he wanted the recordings as part of an effort to target “swing voters across the country.” With this in mind, and given that there’s no legitimate or legislative reason to release the audio, Team Biden asserted executive privilege. White House Counsel Ed Siskel told congressional Republicans in a letter last month, “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.” (NBC News and other media organizations are suing to force the release of the audio on the grounds that it’s part of the public record.) Some GOP members are nevertheless so desperate to exploit the audio recording that they’re getting creative, as evidenced by the inherent contempt gambit. Given the margins in the House, Luna’s effort would need the support of practically every member of the House Republican Conference, and the latest reporting suggests that’s unlikely. As for what would happen if the effort succeeds, Politico reported that the inherent contempt process “could take months.” Experts on House process and procedure warn that an inherent contempt vote could trigger months and months of deliberations, from hashing out separation of powers authorities governing the initial arrest to a makeshift trial on the House floor. Adding in another curveball, Garland has a security detail due to his attorney general title, and it’s unclear how bringing a sitting Cabinet official into custody would play out, particularly given Biden’s assertion of executive privilege.
Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
