Leon Neal
- The DOJ rejected Republicans' demands for recordings of Biden's interview on classified documents.
- Republicans already have access to the full transcripts of the interview.
- DOJ officials accused Republicans of seeking the recordings in order to stoke political tensions.
The Department of Justice on Monday strongly rejected Republicans' demands for audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interview with the special counsel who investigated his mishandling of classified documents, going so far as to accuse GOP lawmakers of requesting the tapes for purely political reasons.
Senior DOJ official Carlos Uriarte sent a letter to Republican committee chairmen Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. James Comer of Kentucky this week rebuking the deadline that party leaders had set for the agency. Jordan and Comer subpoenaed the tapes after Hur released his report in February.
In the Monday letter, Uriarte pointed out that lawmakers already have access to the full transcripts from the interview, according to multiple media outlets.
"Asking for the audio tapes when you have the transcripts is very unusual," Matthew Schmidt, an assistant professor of political science and national security at the University of New Haven, told Business Insider.
Special counsel Robert Hur questioned Biden in October about classified documents found in 2022 at his Deleware home and an office he used after leaving office. In his final report, Hur said their two-day discussion played a role in his decision not to charge Biden in the matter, even though he determined that Biden did willfully keep classified government records after leaving office in some instances.
Hur cited a lack of evidence to charge Biden criminally, but Republicans zeroed in on Hur's suggestion that an eventual post-presidency prosecution of Biden could render him a sympathetic defendant because of his age and seeming memory problems.
"The expectation was that Republicans would use the audio tapes to essentially show Biden was suffering from dementia or senility on the basis of his voice or on the basis of him dropping words," Schmidt said.
"This could essentially be raw material for campaign ads," he added.
Uriarte appeared to make a similar claim in the Monday letter, suggesting Republicans may not be interested in actually gathering evidence but instead requested the tapes "to serve political purposes that should have no role in the treatment of law enforcement files," The Washington Post reported, citing the letter.
Uriarte said the department had met or exceeded its subpoena requests for the case and accused Republicans of escalating the matter as "conflict for conflict's sake," according to CNN.
Schmidt said it's unusual for Justice Department officials to make such blatant accusations against lawmakers. The letter's tone, he added, is further proof of the country's divided and partisan political makeup at the moment.
Business Insider reported in March that the transcripts of Biden's conversation with Hur suggest critiques of the president's memory are overblown and actually showcase his sense of humor while under pressure.
Biden's handling of classified documents is unlikely to be a major campaign pillar for Republicans and GOP frontrunner former President Donald Trump in the coming election, Schmidt predicted.
But Biden's age is another story.
"That's why Republicans think it's so important they get ahold of these tapes," Schmidt said. "Because the transcripts withhold a lot of human-level information."
Republicans have threatened to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in criminal contempt for failing to fully with their subpoena — yet another sign of America's increasingly fractured political system, Schmidt said.
"In general, I think that would be a bridge too far," he said. "But it's an election year. It could make political sense to go that far."