Merrick Garland displayed ‘a breach of the oath’ by shielding Biden audio, congressman says

A congressman from Wisconsin said Attorney General Merrick Garland broke his oath of office by wrongly shielding the damning audio of President Biden’s October 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur, which seemed to show the president’s mental decline was worse than the White House acknowledged.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald told The Washington Times on Saturday that Mr. Garland, at the very least, misled Congress about the details of the audio during testimony last year.

Mr. Garland told Mr. Biden to assert executive privilege to block the release of the audio last year. The attorney general said making it public would hurt the Justice Department’s pursuit of other investigations and having witnesses come forward.

Still, the transcript was released. Mr. Garland told Congress that it faithfully captured what the president said.

The audio, which Axios has now made public, differs significantly from the transcript by showing a stuttering president whose pauses, not fully captured in the transcript, suggest mental decline.

Mr. Fitzgerald raised the issue with Mr. Garland in a June hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

That was when Mr. Garland said the transcript was a fair representation.

“You have the special counsel, the FBI agents in the room, and you have the senior career official in the department all comparing it and finding them to be accurate,” he said.

Mr. Fitzgerald told The Times that the explanation had been punctured.

“Asserting privilege to cover up the president’s mental lapses is a breach of the oath the attorney general took. Merrick Garland must clarify his testimony before the Judiciary Committee. At a minimum, the attorney general misrepresented the details of the audio recording,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, a Republican.

In the June committee proceedings, Mr. Garland acknowledged that he hadn’t heard the audio when he said it should be withheld.

“There’s no reason for me to listen to it in order to make the determinations that I had to make. We had the special counsel describe in detail his explanations for his determinations,” he said.

Mr. Fitzgerald found that answer lacking.

“I don’t understand how you can sit before the congressional committee and arbitrate what’s indistinguishable from the transcripts if you’re not even sure what’s on the tapes themselves,” he said.

In an exchange with Mr. Hur in which Mr. Biden seemed to forget the date of his son’s death, the official transcript captured it as such:

“Okay, yeah. And in 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal — the genesis of the book and the title ‘Promise Me, Dad,’ was a — I know you’re all — close with your sons and daughters, but Beau was like my right arm and Hunt was my left,” Mr. Biden said. His son actually died in 2015.

Here’s how a transcription of the audio with all the pauses, including the ticking of a grandfather clock, sounds, according to Axios:

“Okay, yeah …”

Tick.

“… Beau had passed and …”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

“… this is personal …”

Tick. Tock. Tick.

“… the genesis of the book and the title Promise Me, Dad, was a …”

Tick. Tock.

“… like my right arm, and Hunt was my left.”

Democrats at the congressional hearing vehemently defended the transcript as accurate, “except for some stutters.”

“He’s had a stuttering problem his entire life,” Rep. Ted Lieu, California Democrat, said about the president in defense of Mr. Garland at last year’s hearing. “It is despicable that my Republican colleagues want to go after him for his stuttering problem. They should apologize, and I yield back.”

Mr. Garland was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the recording of the Hur-Biden interview. His Justice Department refused to pursue the case.

Mr. Hur was investigating the president’s storage of classified documents at his home. He said Mr. Biden shouldn’t be prosecuted because he would come across to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

Mr. Hur’s report was released in February 2024. Four months later, Mr. Biden’s incoherent debate performance put the president’s mental state front and center for voters. Within weeks, he was forced out of the race.