Hello, everyone, I'm Lindsay Reiser. The Justice Department will not
prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt of Congress.
The DOJ sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson
explaining the decision.
It follows the passage of the contempt resolution in the
House earlier this week.
That vote fell along party lines,
with only one Republican voting to not hold Garland in
contempt.
CBS News congressional correspondent Nicole Killion is on Capitol Hill.
So, Nicole, walk us through what's in this letter.
Well, basically, the Justice Department is saying that it will
not prosecute Merrick Garland for the contempt of Congress.
As you know, just this week,
the House voted primarily on
party lines to hold the attorney general in contempt for
failing to comply, in their view,
or in House Republicans view,
with a congressional subpoena. And this all stems from these
audio recordings of a interview between President Biden and special
Counsel Robert Her over Biden's handling of classified documents.
Lawmakers were already provided a transcript,
but House Republicans really wanted that recording because they wanted
to see if it was consistent with the transcript.
But what the Justice Department is arguing here is that
executive privilege was exerted over those recordings,
which in their view was legally proper.
So therefore, there is not a need to prosecute the
attorney general over this.
And furthermore, they say that the Department of Justice did
try to accommodate this request from House Republicans,
even though they didn't necessarily feel that it was substantive.
And even the attorney general himself argued that in terms
of that contempt resolution that there was no real legitimate
purpose behind it.
So, you know, the Justice Department,
in their view, believes that they have tried to comply
with lawmakers request as best as they can.
But at the end of the day,
because that executive privilege was exerted over those recordings,
then there is no need to prosecute the attorney general
at this time.
So no legitimate purpose is the position of the DOJ.
Nicole, is that essentially is it the idea that Republicans
want this because Robert Herb was characterizing the president in
a certain way and and that could be damaging,
especially if they have the audio,
they can sort of use it in a way that
could even be used in campaign ads.
Well, that's pretty much the argument that many Democrats were
making.
They feel that House Republicans were really just pushing this
issue for a political gain,
you know, because technically speaking,
again, they had that transcript of the interview.
So for all intents and purposes,
they know what was said and they have that information.
But, you know, Republicans argued,
well, you know, what if they were trying to cover
up any gaps by the president or you know,
what if they removed something from the transcript that was
actually said on tape,
that was Republicans concerns. But again,
Democrats argue that that's really just political theater and Republicans
trying to exploit the situation on their part.
So again, at this time,
the Justice Department making clear that it will not prosecute
the attorney general.
And really, there has been no precedent set for this.
Obviously, Attorney General Garland is not the first attorney general
to be held in contempt of Congress.
But to date, we have never seen an attorney general
charged over that.
And so once again, you know,
the Justice Department kind of staying in line with that
precedent of not moving ahead with any charges.
OK Nicole Killion, thank you.
You bet.