WASHINGTON— The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released an order Monday night ordering expedited briefing by the parties to determine whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) should be forced to release audio footage of the interview Special Counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Biden prior to producing his report describing the president’s mental fitness. The DOJ adamantly opposed a truncated briefing schedule in an apparent attempt to string out resolution of this case for as long as possible.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project at The Heritage Foundation, commented on the order:
“The Department of Justice is acting as President Biden's personal lawyer by unlawfully refusing to turn over the audio tape of Biden's interview with Hur. It must be a bad interview for Biden and is likely related to why he has shattered the presidential tradition of giving legitimate interviews.
“The Department of Justice made the absurd claim they needed extra time to prepare their legal arguments to defend their withholding of the audio of Hur’s interview with the president. They have no case, and they know it. The American people have an overwhelming interest in hearing President Biden’s voice in an official criminal interview and they have the right to hear for themselves the interview that led Hur to say that Biden has “diminished mental faculties” and that a jury would be reluctant to convict “an elderly man with a poor memory.”
“At the same time the DOJ is slow-walking the production of these records, Attorney General Garland is defying a congressional subpoena for the same records. This implies that the attorney general himself has extensively considered the issue and appears ready to face contempt of Congress charges for his defiance. The DOJ doesn’t need more time to prepare, and we’re grateful the court has seen through this charade.”
This order comes just one month after the Oversight Project filed a lawsuit demanding the release of the audio recording of Hur’s interview with President Biden. In his report, Hur shed light on the fragile mental state of the president, citing his “lapses and failures … consistent with diminished faculties and faulty memory” and describing him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Although President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” Special Counsel Hur declined to pursue charges because of concerns over President Biden’s mental faculties.
