The House voted against holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress on Thursday, with a handful of skeptical Republicans joining all Democrats to kill the move.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Republican, led the charge to use congressional power, which has not been touched by Congress for nearly a century, to slap hefty fines on Mr. Garland for not turning over recordings of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview of President Biden.
Though many Republicans and former President Donald Trump backed the move, four House Republicans voted against it. The measure failed on a 204 to 210 vote.
Republican Reps. John Duarte of California, David Joyce of Ohio, Tom McClintock of California and Mike Turner of Ohio voted against Ms. Luna’s resolution.
Had the measure been successful, Mr. Garland would have been required to pay $10,000 per day in fines if he continued to withhold the tapes, which House Republicans have doggedly pursued as part of their impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden.
The tapes are from Mr. Hur’s probe of Mr. Biden’s stash of classified documents taken during his time in the Senate and the vice presidency.
The tapes are expected to showcase Mr. Bidens mental decline, as Mr. Hur said he didn’t bring charges against the president in part because a jury would view him sympathetically as a well-meaning old man with a poor memory.
Ms. Luna blamed attendance as part of the reason why her bill, along with a GOP-authored spending bill, failed on the floor. A dozen House Republicans were absent from the vote on the inherent contempt resolution.
“Republican bills went down today,” Ms. Luna wrote on X. “We will bring the vote back to the Floor with legislative appropriations when Members are here.”
Originally, she sought to arrest Mr. Garland but revised her resolution after complaints from Republicans, who believed that it went too far, especially after the House voted to hold Mr. Garland in contempt of Congress last month. The Judiciary Committee also sued the Justice Department to get access to the tapes earlier this month.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, was among the Republicans skeptical of the move, but he did not try and shut down Ms. Luna’s bid to force a vote. The speaker told reporters earlier this week that he preferred the lawsuit from the Judiciary Committee.
House Republicans already have the transcript of the interview but insist the audio recordings are needed for their long-running impeachment inquiry into the president to determine if the transcript matches what’s on the tapes.
Republicans say the transcript is not enough, noting that it includes redaction and unspecified changes.
A trio of House committees have investigated Mr. Biden as part of their impeachment inquiry since September for corruption related to his involvement in his family’s business deals.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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