Barely two days after House Republicans passed a criminal referral of Attorney General Merrick Garland to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress, the DOJ signaled it would be rejecting their demand for criminal prosecution.
The contempt referral was based on DOJ's refusal to hand over the raw footage of President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur in the classified documents investigation — even though the GOP already had the complete transcript of that interview. The Biden administration considered this demand a pretext to hunt for embarrassing footage to clip out of context for GOP campaigns, and invoked executive privilege over the tape.
Commenters on social media laughed at the near-immediate failure of the GOP's push to prosecute the attorney general.
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"Another bad day for MAGA; This is me plunging in their tears," posted the ex-GOP account @ConservBlue2020, accompanied by a GIF of a man diving into a pool.
"That is absolutely the correct decision," wrote the account @CrazyFenaker. "If Congress really thinks they are entitled to evidence associated with an investigation they can sue for it. (Jim) Jordan, (James) Comer, and (Matt) Gaetz didn't take that path because they knew they would get crushed in court."
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"The Department of Justice isn't going to pander to a bunch of thugs who subvert Congress on a daily basis," wrote the account @agentcurieuse.
"BREAKING: Attorney General announces he will not prosecute himself. More at 11," wrote the account @zlatinna22.
Not everyone was thrilled with the decision, however. In particular, Trump-aligned attorney Jenna Ellis, who recently pleaded guilty in the RICO case against Trump's plot to interfere with the 2020 Georgia election results, raged at the news.
"Ridiculous," she wrote. "Congress needs legislation to provide for a special prosecutor when there is a clear conflict of interest. The DOJ cannot be insulated and refuse to prosecute its own members, with no other option for accountability. cc: @SpeakerJohnson."
