Staff Reports
The Department of Justice, or DOJ, is facing some strong demands from Congress and other groups to give them audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s talk with the special counsel who looked into how he handled top-secret papers. The DOJ has said no to the requests from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, conservative groups such as Judicial Watch, and CNN. This has led to more legal action, lots of strain with Congress, and a fair amount of criticism.
Judicial Watch’s President, Tom Fitton, thinks that the DOJ is covering up the truth. He says that the DOJ is using Joe Biden’s privacy as an excuse to not share the audio of his interviews with the special counsel. Some other groups, like the Heritage Foundation and CNN, have also started legal cases to try to make the DOJ share the recordings. These recordings would show Biden talking to the special counsel about how he dealt with secret information when he was the vice president and a senator.
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The special counsel found after a long look into things that Biden did not handle top-secret information the way he should have. The counsel also said Biden shared secret information with the person who helped him write his book, Promise Me, Dad. But even though the counsel did not think Biden did the right thing, the counsel did not choose to take Biden to court since the counsel said Biden came off as a kind, well-meaning older person with a bad memory. The counsel also thought that Biden’s mind was not so sharp, which was one reason the counsel did not try to take Biden to court.
The DOJ did give Congress a transcript, or a written record, of the special counsel’s talk with Biden, but that did not include everything. The audio recordings could give more information about how Biden was talking and acting during the interview.
The DOJ has said it is going to fight Judicial Watch, the Heritage Foundation, and CNN in court over the recordings. The DOJ says it does not have to show the audio because of rules about privacy. The DOJ says it is also worried that making these recordings public might scare people away from talking to the police in other cases.
In some letters that Congress got and the Washington Examiner learned about, a DOJ spokesman said the department already gave most of what Jordan and Comer asked for, and that giving the audio could hurt the police’s work in the future. Even though Congress has said they are not happy with this, the DOJ has stuck to its stand and says that Congress should not get mad at them because Congress has not shown a good reason for needing the recordings.
This situation shows that Congress might start a big fight or try to bargain with the DOJ, while the groups going up against the DOJ in court might have to keep fighting for a while longer.
