Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the White House's decision Thursday to block the release of audio from President Joe Biden's interview with the special counsel about his handling of classified documents.
The White House argues Republicans in Congress only want the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes as Biden seeks reelection.
The dispute over access to the recordings is at the center of a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress and more broadly to hinder the Democratic president's reelection effort in the final months of the closely contested campaign.
Garland advised Biden in a letter made public Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.
Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Garland said, "There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the Justice Department."
“This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just most recent," he said.
Garland said in his letter to Biden that lawmakers' efforts "are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future."
