House Republicans cleared the way for a floor vote as early as Wednesday on whether to hold Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio recordings from a special counsel investigation of President Joe Biden.
The Justice Department gave lawmakers the transcript of former special counsel Robert K. Hur’s interview with the president. But the department refused to release the audio despite subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Last month, Biden invoked executive privilege over the recordings, which generally has given a president the authority to withhold information to protect the executive branch’s ability to confer and make decisions outside of public view.
