The House GOP's vote to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress was a politically motivated sham, assistant Democratic leader Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Wednesday evening.
The contempt referral, which is expected to go nowhere because the Justice Department itself has the final say on whether to bring charges, stems from the GOP's demands for raw footage of President Joe Biden's interview with former special counsel Robert Hur in the classified documents case — a demand that Neguse slammed as completely frivolous.
"The scandal machine has basically run out of fuel and now, out of desperation, Republicans are demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland release the audiotape of President Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur," said Hayes. "Even though Republicans already have the entire transcript of that interview. Today, they voted to hold the attorney general in contempt ... Congressman, what was this all about?"
Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.
"Unfortunately, it is a sad state of affairs in Washington, D.C. as extreme House Republicans have once again found a way to weaponize what are very constitutional and serious tools that the Congress has at its disposal," said Neguse.
ALSO READ: ‘Glaring crisis’: Postal service blasted for poor policing amid crime wave
"In this case, as you articulated, they pursued a baseless contempt resolution against the attorney general," said Neguse. "By way of background, as many of your viewers already know, the attorney general fully complied with the requests made by the Congress. The Department of Justice produced over 90,000 pages of documents with respect to this inquiry — more, by the way, Chris, than the entire Department of Justice provided during the course of the Trump administration — and also produced the transcript itself of the president's conversation with the special counsel. The pretextual reasons House Republicans offered for purposes of the audio were clearly a smokescreen for what was a political exercise. They wanted audiotapes to use them for a campaign commercial. And the attorney general cited a number of reasons why, ultimately, that tape could not be provided. The president invoked executive privilege, and Republicans in the House, of course, know that to be the case, but they proceeded anyway."
"Unfortunately, I think it is shameful and disgraceful, and we will have to see what comes next in the clown show that they have perpetrated on the American people right now," he added.
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Joe Neguse slams GOP contempt referral for Merrick Garland www.youtube.com
