Closing summary
The Republican-controlled House judiciary committee advanced a resolution to hold attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt for not turning over recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. Earlier in the day, the president moved to invoke executive privilege to keep the records out of the public eye, while the justice department argued that Republican lawmakers demanding the audio offered no good reason why they should be made public, and worried their release would chill future investigations. Judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan responded that the White House’s transcripts of Biden’s interview with Hur, who was investigating the president’s possession of classified documents, cannot be trusted to be accurate. The House oversight committee will consider the resolution later tonight, and is expected to approve it.
Here’s what else happened today:
Biden announced that the justice department would ease restrictions on marijuana, the biggest policy shift over the drug in decades.
The Republican push to access audio of Biden’s interview with Hur is likely an attempt to refocus voters’ attention on the president’s age, and the special counsel’s comments about his memory.
Rightwing representative Matt Gaetz traveled to Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City, and echoed language the ex-president used to address the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members were involved in the January 6 insurrection.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit an all-time high, and Biden seized on it to argue Americans were benefitting.
The supreme court rejected a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought by the payday loan industry that could have undermined the agency tasked with curbing predatory lending.
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Even as they move to hold attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt, House Republicans are publicly continuing their impeachment investigation of Joe Biden.
The GOP alleges that the president illicitly benefited from his family members’ overseas business dealings, but has yet to turn up proof. Today, James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee and a leader of the investigation, announced another volley of subpoenas intended to reveal more about the Biden family’s finances:
🚨🧵Today, @GOPoversight sent a targeted subpoena for bank records connected to James Biden, Sara Biden, and Hunter Biden.
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) May 16, 2024
We know the Biden family set up over 20 shell companies & raked in over $24 million from China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries. @MariaBartiromo pic.twitter.com/kpfJpDrl41
Last month, CNN reported that Comer said privately that he was ready to be “done with” the impeachment investigation, and it’s unclear whether enough Republicans would vote to advance the charges through the House.
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From the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, here’s a recap of the saga that unfolded today, as Republicans pushed ahead with a resolution to hold attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt, and the White House invoked executive privilege to keep a recording of Joe Biden’s interview with Robert Hur from being released:
Joe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama.
In a letter reported on by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White House counsel, Edward Siskel, told the Republican chairs of the House judiciary and oversight committees: “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal – to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes.
“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement materials from the executive branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”
The two chairs, Jim Jordan of Ohio (judiciary) and James Comer of Kentucky (oversight), both close allies of Donald Trump, have led Republican efforts to ensnare Biden in damaging investigations including an attempted but sputtering impeachment.
Biden’s retention of classified information was discovered as Trump, Biden’s opponent in this year’s election, came to face 40 criminal charges on the same issue.
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The House oversight committee is convening at the unusually late hour of 8pm reportedly because several Republican lawmakers are in New York to show solidarity with Donald Trump at his business fraud trail. The pilgrimage serves a second purpose, as a way to get on the ex-president’s good side as he searches for a new running mate, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Two senators, JD Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, have shot to the front of the US media’s beloved “veepstakes” – the reporting, betting and outright speculation about who Donald Trump will pick as his running mate against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the presidential election in November.
But one report from Capitol Hill quoted a source as saying that Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican senator who ran against Trump in 2016, was still an “ace in the hole” for one adviser particularly close to Trump, “if Scott gets taken out on the runway”.
That might have been a pointed choice of words, given reports that Trump’s plane clipped another at a Florida airport last Sunday.
Vance, meanwhile, might have stolen a march on Scott by flying to New York to attend Trump’s hush-money trial on Monday.
Emerging from court in Manhattan, Vance slammed the case against Trump, which frames payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels around the 2016 campaign as a form of election subversion, and concerns 34 of the 88 criminal charges Trump must face as he attempts to return to power.
Vance was not the first Trump-supporting Republican to show up in New York but he did grab headlines by doing so.
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House judiciary committee advances resolution to hold Merrick Garland in contempt over Biden interview recording
After hours of debate, the Republican-controlled House judiciary committee moved forward with a resolution to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt for not handing over a recording of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
The vote was 18 in favor of advancement, and 15 against.
The White House today asserted executive privilege over the recording, which Hur made as part of his investigation into Biden’s possession of classified documents. The special counsel concluded that no charges should be filed against the president, but made remarks about his age and memory that drew outrage from Democrats. The justice department also objected to the audio’s release, saying a transcript had already been made public, but the committee’s chair, Jim Jordan, argued that the document could not be trusted to be accurate.
The House oversight committee is scheduled to convene at 8pm to consider the same resolution. Republicans hold a majority there, and the measure is expected to advance.
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Biden announces support for reducing federal regulations on marijuana
Joe Biden announced the justice department’s endorsement for decreasing federal restrictions on marijuana, casting it as a step towards ending what he called decades of “failed” approaches to regulating the psychoactive plant:
Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 16, 2024
So today, the @TheJusticeDept is taking the next step to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug under federal law.
Here's what that means: pic.twitter.com/TMztSyyFYm
Marijuana will still be regulated under the federal Controlled Substances Act, but as a less-dangerous Schedule III drug rather than its current listing under Schedule I – which is reserved for what the law considers the most dangerous substances.
The change is the biggest shift to marijuana policy in decades, but will not resolve the many conflicts between federal law and those of states that have legalized it for medical or recreational use. Here’s more on what the change will mean:
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren cheered the supreme court’s decision preserving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism, but warned that the agency would likely face more opposition in the future.
Warren was a key figure in the bureau’s establishment under Barack Obama. Here’s what she had to say:
The CFPB is here to stay. In a 7-2 decision, the supreme court followed the law and confirmed that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional. For the last decade, the consumer agency has fought the big banks and predatory lenders that try to cheat hardworking people. As of this week, the CFPB has returned more than $20bn in ill-gotten funds to American families.
This isn’t the last attack on the CFPB we’ll see from Wall Street, the banks and their Republican allies. When an agency is this effective at sticking up for working families against industry’s consumer abuses, it’s an obvious target for multimillion-dollar lobbying campaigns. The CFPB will keep on doing its work to slash junk fees, fight giant banks when they cheat people and level the playing field for everyone in this country.
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Supreme court turns down payday loan industry challenge to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The supreme court has rejected a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from the payday loan industry that could have jeopardized the existence of the agency intended to curb predator lending.
Here’s more from Reuters on the decision, which brought together the court’s three liberals and four of its six conservatives:
The US supreme court on Thursday upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism in a challenge brought by the payday loan industry, handing a victory to Joe Biden’s administration and a setback to the agency’s conservative critics.
The 7-2 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that the CFPB’s funding design – drawing money each year from the Federal Reserve instead of from budgets passed by lawmakers – violated a provision of the US constitution giving Congress the power of the purse.
Clarence Thomas, who wrote the ruling, said that the CFPB’s funding design complied with the constitution’s “appropriations clause”, which vests spending authority in Congress.
“Under the appropriations clause, an appropriation is simply a law that authorizes expenditures from a specified source of public money for designated purposes,” the conservative justice wrote. “The statute that provides the bureau’s funding meets these requirements.”
The CFPB was established under a law signed by Barack Obama in 2010 to curb the kind of predatory lending that contributed to the 2007–2009 financial crisis. The agency has delivered $19bn of relief to consumers including a $3.7bn settlement in 2022 with Wells Fargo.
Many conservatives and their Republican allies have portrayed the CFPB as part of an overbearing “administrative state”, the network of agencies responsible for the array of federal regulations affecting businesses and individuals.
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The day so far
As House Republicans press forward with a resolution to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt for not releasing recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, the president moved to invoke executive privilege to keep the records out of the public eye. The justice department argued that the two GOP-led committees demanding the audio offered no good reason why they should be made public, and worried their release would chill future investigations. Jim Jordan, the Republican House judiciary committee chair, argued that the White House transcripts of Biden’s interview with Hur, who was investigating his possession of classified documents, cannot be trusted to be accurate. The judiciary committee’s hearing is ongoing, and the House oversight committee is also expected to consider the matter later this evening.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The Republican push to access audio of Biden’s interview with Hur is likely an attempt to refocus voters’ attention on the president’s age, and the special counsel’s comments about his memory.
Rightwing congressman Matt Gaetz traveled to Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City, and echoed language the ex-president used to address the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members were involved in the January 6 insurrection.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit an all-time high, and Biden seized on it to argue Americans would benefit.
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Biden cheers as Dow Jones hits all-time high
The Dow Jones industrial average, one of Wall Street’s benchmark indices, just climbed above 40,000 points for the first time ever, and Joe Biden wants you to know:
This is great news for Americans’ retirement accounts and another sign of confidence in America’s economy.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 16, 2024
I’m building an economy from the middle out and bottom up – and our investments are making a difference. https://t.co/rF2PFy1fD3
It is indeed a positive sign for people with money tied up in the stock market, and potentially for Biden, whose handling of the economy has received low marks in recent polls. That said, the stock market and the economy are two different things.
Here’s more on the Dow’s big day, and what it means:
Back at the House judiciary committee’s markup of a Republican-backed resolution to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt, Democrats are pressing on with efforts to shift the focus to Donald Trump’s own legal troubles.
California congressman Ted Lieu seized on Trump’s reported tendency to shut his eyes during his trial in New York on business fraud charges:
“If Donald Trump is so weak and feeble, he cannot stay awake at his own criminal trial, he can't be president of the United States.”
— The Recount (@therecount) May 16, 2024
— Rep. Ted Lieu during a House Judiciary Committee hearing debating holding AG Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. pic.twitter.com/y8q0eUK3AP
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Donald Trump’s campaign is attacking Joe Biden for asserting executive privilege over recordings of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
“Crooked Joe Biden and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicized the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Trump has his own history with executive privilege, the presidential right to keep certain communications secret. After leaving office, he sued after the Biden administration agreed to waive executive privilege over documents related to January 6, leading the House committee investigating the insurrection to defer its request for the records:
House Republican echoes Trump's instruction to Proud Boys in appearance at New York trial
Once again, a group of House Republicans is making a pilgrimage to the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s business fraud trial is taking place in a show of support for their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
Among the group is Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who on X shared a photo of himself outside the courtroom while echoing Trump’s instruction to the Proud Boys militia group in 2020 to “stand back and stand by”:
Standing back and standing by, Mr. President. pic.twitter.com/gGPeTLtWmv
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) May 16, 2024
The Proud Boys were among the far-right groups that participated in the January 6 insurrection, and several of their members are now in jail for the attack:
Donald Trump’s trial on business fraud charges over hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election is continuing today in New York City.
Testifying today is Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, a star witness for the prosecution. In cross-examination, an attorney for Trump is insinuating that he’s out for revenge against his former boss. Follow our live blog for the latest:
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As Republicans rail against Joe Biden, the judiciary’s committee’s Democratic minority is trying to shift attention to Donald Trump and his legal troubles.
Congressman Adam Schiff accused the GOP of attempting to hold Garland in contempt simply to help Trump’s presidential aspirations.
“The Republicans in this committee have moved from being the criminal defense firm for the president to being, essentially, an adjunct of the president’s media advertising firm,” Schiff said.
He went on:
They want the video for Donald Trump’s campaign commercials. That’s where this committee has become, the committee on the judiciary, the committee that is centered or supposed to be centered on the rule of law and on justice, and what are we doing? We’re holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt, and for what? Because he won’t give video material for a campaign commercial to this committee, on behalf of a president who is a criminal defendant in a hush-money payment to a porn star case in New York – the first of many criminal trials that he will face. This is where we are.
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Jim Jordan also addressed the White House’s assertion today of executive privilege to prevent the attorney general, Merrick Garland, from releasing audio of Joe Biden’s interview with Robert Hur.
“This morning, we get an 11th-hour invocation of executive privilege. President Biden is asserting executive privilege for the same reason we need the audio recordings – they offer a unique perspective,” Jordan said.
“This last-minute invocation does not change the fact that the attorney general has not complied with our subpoena.”
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Top House Republican argues transcripts can't be trusted as Garland contempt hearing begins
At the start of the House judiciary committee’s markup of a resolution to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt, the Republican chair, Jim Jordan, argued that releasing the recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with Robert Hur was necessary because the previously released transcripts cannot be trusted.
“The recordings are necessary. The transcripts alone are not sufficient evidence of the state of the president’s memory … because the White House has a track record of altering the transcript,” Jordan said.
He cited an April incident, widely reported by the conservative press, in which Biden read the instruction “pause” off of his teleprompter at a speech in Washington DC. A transcript released later by the White House did not include the blunder, which Jordan argued was a sign that the interview transcripts might not be accurate:
The video and the audio recording is the best evidence of the words that President Biden actually spoke. The department’s refusal to produce the audio recordings of the special counsel for his interviews with President Biden amounts to a demand that the committee trust that the department created and produced interview transcripts that are actually accurate and complete – transcripts that the White House and President Biden’s personal counsel likely had access to before they were finalized.
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Why are House Republicans so keen on getting access to audio recordings of Joe Biden and his ghostwriter’s interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated his possession of classified documents?
It centers around Biden’s age, and what Hur wrote about it in his report. While Hur ultimately recommended that the president not be charged, he noted that Biden would present himself to a jury as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. It was an eyebrow-raising remark, given that, at 81, Biden is the oldest president to have ever served, and polls show that’s a significant concern for voters.
However, some of Hur’s other remarks about Biden’s age were not completely supported by the transcripts released by the justice department. Here’s more on that:
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Justice department says House GOP has not named 'legitimate congressional need' to obtain Biden interview recording
In a letter to House Republicans obtained by the Guardian, a top justice department official said lawmakers had provided no clear reason why they were demanding recordings of Joe Biden and his ghostwriter’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur, and refused to turn them over.
“Despite our many requests, the Committees have not articulated a legitimate congressional need to obtain audio recordings from Mr Hur’s investigation, let alone one that outweighs the Department’s strong interest in protecting the confidentiality of law enforcement files,” assistant attorney general Carlos Felipe Uriarte wrote in a letter to oversight committee chair James Comer and judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan.
“The Department will continue to cooperate reasonably and appropriately, but we will not risk the long-term integrity of our law enforcement work.”
The 11-page letter lists a number of reasons why the department would not hand over the recording, including concerns that doing so would chill cooperation with future investigations, and that the lawmakers may use the recordings for “political purposes”.
Uriarte closed by telling the GOP that the department had provided more than enough information:
If the Committees’ goal is to receive information from the Department in furtherance of your investigations, that goal has been more than met. Our cooperation has been extraordinary. The Committees have not responded in kind. It seems that the more information you receive, the less satisfied you are, and the less justification you have for contempt, the more you rush towards it.
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The letter from Joe Biden’s counsel Edward N Siskel ends with a series of recriminations against House Republicans, accusing them of mounting an attack on the criminal justice system.
“Rather than demonstrating respect for the rule of law, this contempt proceeding is just the latest in the Committees’ damaging efforts to undermine the very independence and impartiality of the Department of Justice and criminal justice system that President Biden seeks to protect,” Siskel wrote.
He continued:
Your subpoenas and contempt threats come in the wake of the Committees’ efforts to go after prosecutors you do not like, attack witnesses in cases you disapprove of, and demand information from ongoing investigations and prosecutions, despite longstanding norms that these law enforcement processes should be allowed to play out free from such political interference.
White House asserts executive privilege over Biden interview audio, accuses GOP of 'partisan political' motivations
The White House has asserted executive privilege over interview recordings with Joe Biden and his ghostwriter that were demanded by House Republicans, while accusing the lawmakers of planning to use them “for partisan political purposes”.
In a letter to the Republican chairs of the judiciary and oversight committees, a lawyer for the president, Edward N Siskel, says the administration has already provided transcripts of the interviews, copies of letters between the parties and classified documents, but is holding back the recordings of the interviews themselves out of concern that their release could harm future investigations.
“As you know, the Attorney General has warned that the disclosure of materials like these audio recordings risks harming future law enforcement investigations by making it less likely that witnesses in high-profile investigations will voluntarily cooperate,” Siskel wrote.
He went on to accuse the GOP of seeking the recordings merely so they could use them to attack Biden:
The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal – to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes. Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.
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House Republicans move to hold attorney general in contempt over Biden classified documents investigation
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Earlier this year, justice department special counsel Robert Hur released his report into Joe Biden’s possession of classified documents, which did not recommend charging the president, but nonetheless caused a firestorm over comments Hur included about the president’s age and memory. The news has since moved on, but Republicans in the House of Representatives are not finished with the investigation. Shortly after its release, two GOP-led committees sent subpoenas to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding the video and audio recordings of Hur’s interviews with Biden, and a ghostwriter who collaborated on his memoir. Garland did not hand over what they wanted, so, today, two House committees led by Biden antagonists will begin the process of holding the attorney general in contempt.
First up is the judiciary committee, which will start its markup of the resolution at 10am ET, followed by the oversight committee, which convenes at 8pm – reportedly so lawmakers can attend Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City.
Here’s what else is going on:
House Republicans will consider messaging bills intended to force Democrats into tricky votes, including legislation meant to stop the Biden administration from cutting off the flow of weapons to Israel. Votes are expected at 4pm.
Biden holds a White House meeting at 11.30am with the plaintiffs in Brown v Board of Education, the landmark supreme court decision that paved the way for school desegregation.
Speaker Mike Johnson and North Carolina officials will unveil a statue of influential evangelist Billy Graham in the US Capitol at 11am.
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