White House blocks audio of Biden’s special counsel interview, AP Explains

President Joe Biden on Thursday invoked executive privilege over the audio recording of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Her last year. We've seen the transcript of that interview that was released not long after hers report was made available to congressman to the public, and it was a source of a lot of controversy over what her described as lapses in the president's memory that were contained in that interview. But Biden blocked that report at which prevented it from being transmitted to Congress, which has requested it from the Department of Justice. And now the House Judiciary Committee is moving forward with an effort to try to hold a trade general, Merrick Garland, in contempt because the White House has blocked the release of that audio. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the committees get responses to their legitimate requests, but this is not one. As part of the reason for invoking executive privilege, the White House relied on a memo from the Attorney General essentially saying that there was a need to safeguard law enforcement materials in a closed investigation. Now that the Special Counsel's probe into the President's handling of classified documents has ended, there's also an obvious political undertone to all of this, both from the White House perspective and on the part of of House Republicans. The the American people will not be able to hear why prosecutors felt the President of the United States was in Special Counsel. Robert Hurd's words, a quote elderly man with a poor memory and thus shouldn't be charged. Everything about this was going to be, in some degrees, bad news for the White House. The existence of the Special counsel investigation, the discovery of classified documents in President Biden's possession improperly, The release of the report, the interview itself, the release of the transcript wasn't great. And had this audio come out, it probably would have been bad for the White House as well. But what the White House tried to do is by allowing the transcript to be released by drawing the line at the audio, is to sort of thread the needle a little bit and and and. And and while, you know, minimizing the political harm as best they can, that's not what certainly what House Republicans are saying. And there may be Americans who want to listen to that audio for themselves, but they won't be given that opportunity. But the White House is is wagering that because that tramp is out there, this story won't have have have as many legs as it would otherwise.