Johnson Gets Applauds Over Garland’s Stand

House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson is getting support for his remarkable stand on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s contempt for Congress.

The House held Garland in contempt after he refused to release the audio tapes of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. Despite prosecuting several of Former President Donald Trump’s former aides for the same offense, the Justice Department declined to prosecute Garland.

The number of people on planet Earth who were surprised when the DOJ announced that they wouldn’t prosecute Merrick Garland’s contempt charges are ZERO.

This is the most partisan DOJ in history.

They only care about locking up their political opponents and protecting their… pic.twitter.com/PPwnvpzNyj

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— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) June 16, 2024

Responding to the DOJ’s refusal, Johnson vowed to take the case to court.

🚨FLASHBACK: Never forget that Joe Biden said people who defy Congressional subpoenas should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Now do Merrick Garland.

pic.twitter.com/E7OfxdUxjy

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 15, 2024

“The House disagrees with the assertions in the letter from the Department of Justice, and as Speaker, I will be certifying the contempt reports to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. We will also move to enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal court. It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing. This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration,” Johnson Wrote on X.

The House disagrees with the assertions in the letter from the Department of Justice, and as Speaker, I will be certifying the contempt reports to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. We will also move to enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal… https://t.co/YOzqzlKWtE

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) June 14, 2024

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley applauded Johnson’s position on Garland.

“I commend Speaker Johnson in saying we’ll go to court. I represented the House of Representatives in prior litigation and it actually has a very good record, including in our case of prevailing in the federal courts to fight for Article 1 powers — and this is it. This is the hill that you need to fight on.” Turley told Fox guest host Kayleigh McEnany.

Earlier in the show, Turley blasted Garland’s position, describing the AG’s reason for not releasing the audio tapes as “absurd.”

“He’s going to go into a federal court and make an argument that I think most trial lawyers would blush in front of a judge,” Turley said. “He’s arguing that we didn’t view the transcript as privileged but we do believe the audiotape of the same transcript to be privileged, as if this is the president who shall not be heard. No court has ever extended the privilege like that. They made it even more absurd by saying that they have a type of deep fake privilege that if we release the tape, AI will start to make fake audiotapes of the president’s voice. Well, here’s a flash for you Gordon, they already have the president’s voice and you’ve already given the transcript. A high school student could re-create a fake tape like that. If anything, you make it more likely that it would be accepted as true because you won’t release the actual audiotape.”