Special Counsel Robert Hur described President Biden as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The White House did not invoke executive privilege to block the release of the transcript of Hur's interview with Biden. The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees requested the audio recording of Hur's interview. Now the White House has invoked executive privilege to block the release of the audio.
White House Counsel Ed Siskel gave the House's request two-thumbs down:
The President has a duty to safeguard the integrity and independence of Executive Branch law enforcement functions and protect them from undue partisan interference that could weaken those functions in the future. As you know, the Attorney General has warned that the disclosure of materials like these audio recordings risks harming future law enforcement investigations by making it less likely that witnesses in high-profile investigations will voluntarily cooperate. In fact, even a past President and Attorney General from your own party recognized the need to protect this type of law enforcement material from disclosure.
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. Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.
