House Republicans voted Wednesday to criminally refer Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt of Congress despite some reports earlier in the week that they were struggling to get the votes to do so.
The contempt referral, which will not lead to anything because Garland himself leads the agency to which the referral is given, is in response to the Biden administration's refusal to hand over raw footage of special counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden in the classified documents investigation. They already have the full transcript of the interview, and House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has admitted to donors it's a stunt to try to gain campaign fodder rather than an actual investigation.
Commenters on social media, both experts and laypeople alike, slammed the GOP over what they considered a waste of the House's time and energy on a political statement.
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"Why is the GOP, including those who blew off 1/6 Committee subpoenas, trying to hold AG Garland in contempt after he provided overwhelming compliance with their requests?" asked Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). "Do they think impeachable offenses lurk in the background noise of audiotapes they have transcripts for?"
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"Contempt vote for Garland by the way based on not turning over the audio of the Robert Hur interview with Biden when they have the transcript. It is imbecilic and going exactly nowhere," wrote former federal prosecutor Harry Litman, adding, "The morally bankrupt and completely perverse House of Representatives just voted to hold Merrick Garland in contempt on completely spurious grounds. I would say shame on them, but they are shameless."
"The GOP house is an abomination for our democracy. They are showing us just how awful they govern. Vote them out," wrote the account @MatoulaMikos.
"They want the audio so they can cut sentences and phrases out of context to try to prove POTUS is old and senile," wrote the account @Tesscatbird. "Transcripts just don’t cut it- they want ads of Biden stumbling over his words. It’s disgraceful."
"Want audio tapes so they can use out of context vocals by cherry picking and creating an alternative meaning. Have full written transcript, no easy to manipulate," wrote the account @bspence5. "Another sad day on capitol hill."
"They just want to use the audio in misleading political ads to reinforce the false impression that Biden is cognitively impaired," wrote Jeff Browndyke, an associate professor at Duke Medical School. "Meanwhile, Trump routinely spews verbal nonsense and demonstrates dysexecutive behaviors suggestive of possible frontotemporal dementia, but, you know...let's give the morbidly obese man with poor impulse control access to the nuclear codes."
