Justice Department Won't Prosecute Merrick Garland After House Contempt Vote

Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon given prison sentences, but Biden Attorney General afforded executive privilege.

Yesterday, CBS News reported: Justice Department says it won't prosecute Merrick Garland after House contempt vote

Washington — The Justice Department said Friday that it will not prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas for audio recordings of President Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

Carlos Uriarte, assistant attorney general, told House Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter that it is the Justice Department's longstanding policy not to bring contempt charges against an official who declined to turn over subpoenaed information subject to a president's assertion of executive privilege.

Mr. Biden invoked executive privilege over the audiotapes of his interviews with Hur, as well as an interview by his ghostwriter, and directed Garland not to release the materials sought by the House Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability Committees. Republicans on the panel had sought the recordings as part of their impeachment inquiry into the president.

"Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General," Uriarte, who leads the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs, wrote.

This contrasts with Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, who were were not afforded the same executive privilege.

A major question that’s come up in recent years is why the Democrats are so much better at playing hardball than the Republicans.

While the Dems are deadly effective at taking out their opponents, the Republicans always seem to be fecklessly flailing around, getting picked off one by one like inexperienced young soldiers by a skilled sniper.

At a Christmas party last year, I bumped into Sydney Powell and asked why the Republican Party totally sucks at protecting the men and women in its ranks who take on the Dems. She confessed that she too found it confounding and dispiriting.