House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan predicted on Thursday that the contempt case against Attorney General Merrick Garland will go to court, now that the Justice Department said it would not charge him.
The DOJ said last week that Garland's refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena does not "Constitute a crime." The subpoena instructed Garland to turn over an audio recording of President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents.
Jordan said he believes the House has a strong case in court, because the House had a formal vote to enter an impeachment phase against Garland, which includes access to evidence such as the audio recording.
"We [also] believe the privilege that they're asserting, was, in fact waived when Robert Hur gave us the full report that Merrick Garland okayed for him to turn over to us," Jordan said on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast.
"We think if you've given us a transcript, we want the best evidence, which is the audio tape itself, and you've waived any privilege on what might have been said in those communications. So we think it'll go, but the problem is, it just takes a while in court to get that to happen."
The comment comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to certify the contempt order last week, and turn it over to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution.
Garland previously slammed the contempt order, and claimed that House Republicans were using their power as a "Partisan weapon." He also claimed the vote disregarded the two branches' "Constitutional separation of powers."
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