Justice Dept. declines to give Biden-Hur audio recordings to House committee

Officials said lawmakers already have transcripts of the classified documents interviews, suggested lawmakers are seeking the audio to score political points

By Devlin Barrett
April 8, 2024 at 3:48 p.m. EDT



Special counsel Robert K. Hur during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on March 12. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Justice Department officials told House Republicans they don’t intend to provide audio recordings of President Biden’s interviews with the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents — suggesting that since lawmakers already have the transcripts of those interviews, the request was more about scoring political points than seeking information.

Carlos Uriarte, a senior Justice Department official, sent the letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

Their demand for the recordings, after already having the transcripts, “indicates that the Committees’ interest may not be in receiving information in service of legitimate oversight or investigatory functions, but to serve political purposes that should have no role in the treatment of law enforcement files,” Uriarte wrote in the letter sent on Monday.

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By Devlin Barrett
Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. Twitter https://twitter.com/DevlinBarrett