Despite promising to be the most transparent administration in U.S. history, President Joe Biden has decided to block the release of the audio from his interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur during the investigation of his mishandling of classified documents.
The decision comes months after the White House's Ian Sams bragged from the briefing room about how President Biden was not asserting executive privilege during Hur's probe.
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🚨FLASHBACK🚨
— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) May 16, 2024
In February, White House spokesman Ian Sams bragged about Joe Biden not exerting executive privilege during Special Counsel Hur's investigation.
"He had nothing to hide."
Why is Biden hiding behind Executive Privilege now? pic.twitter.com/YZ1qACb2Wz
Biden had "nothing to hide," Sams said in an attempt to champion Biden's alleged moral high ground. Does Biden's assertion of executive privilege now mean that he does, in fact, have something to hide?
The White House Counsel's office is already trying to head off the justified backlash to Biden working to hide the tapes, stating in a letter that executive privilege was being asserted "[b]ecause of the President's longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and independence of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement investigations." Hoo, boy.
Further, Biden's counsel argued there is no "legitimate need for the audio recordings," and suggested that executive privilege was being used to block their release to prevent them from being used for "partisan political purposes."
It's easy to see why Biden would want to prevent the audio from his hours of interviews with Hur's team from going public — as Townhall reported at the time the written report from Hur was released, Biden did not seem to have his wits about him.
As Hur recounted (emphasis added):
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
The conclusion that led Biden to avoid charges for his mishandling of classified documents: "We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
That conclusion was damning enough for the octogenarian president, and the audio of him stumbling through the interview would be even worse as Biden and his campaign seek to convince Americans that he's up to the job for another four years.
"It’s a five-alarm fire at the White House," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said in a statement Thursday morning. "Clearly President Biden and his advisors fear releasing the audio recordings of his interview because it will again reaffirm to the American people that President Biden’s mental state is in decline."
"The House Oversight Committee requires these recordings as part of our investigation of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents," Comer reiterated. "The White House is asserting executive privilege over the recordings, but it has already waived privilege by releasing the transcript of the interview."
"Today’s Hail Mary from the White House changes nothing for our committee," emphasized Comer. "The House Oversight Committee will move forward with its markup of a resolution and report recommending to the House of Representatives that Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for defying a lawful subpoena."
Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung reacted to Biden's decision to use executive privilege, saying "Crooked Joe Biden and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicized the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe."
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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