At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Thanks Mr. Chairman. Mr. Attorney General, the reality is Mr. Herr, Special Counsel Herr, found that then former Vice President, President Biden, had retained and disclosed classified information. Isn't that true?
00:24 Mr. Herr has presented a long report.
00:27 Isn't that true? I'm practically quoting right from it. You wouldn't disagree with that assessment.
00:33 I'm not going to comment on his report. He sets forth. I appointed him to investigate the allegations about classified documents.
00:41 So the reason that we end up talking over you is because a simple question like that goes unanswered. You're non responsive. You're non responsive to the question. Because that is what Mr. Herr found.
00:56 And then he also found and you're not going to like this because I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to quote from it from this. He said he basically says here that he found Mr. Biden to be sympathetic.
01:12 And here he is a well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. And so he made a prosecutorial decision that wasn't going to prosecute. Are you going to dispute that? You're not disputing that, are you?
01:25 Mr. Herr's report. OK, unless it stands on its own. OK, so is it stands on its own? No, because you don't you're not intent on answering. You want to be non responsive.
01:34 You want to filibuster. I'd like to answer your question. Do you dispute that?
01:39 So let's just face it. Mr. Biden has not been prosecuted, correct? That's correct.
01:44 And the rationale given by Mr. Herr is because he was a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. And he thought the jury would have sympathy towards Mr. Biden.
01:54 And that's one of a long list of reasons that Mr. Herr gave for his decision.
01:59 Give me one more reason. He found that I don't want to get into a discussion about this, but I will say one of them was that the president was completely cooperative in this matter.
02:11 That's the reason, huh? OK, all right. You asked me one of the reasons. The issue that we have here, you don't want to give us the audio tape.
02:24 You don't want us to have the recording, but ultimately the issue is whether the transcript actually supports the special counsel's determination.
02:33 Now, your office has basically pled two things in court, claiming, number one, executive privilege, and number two, this kind of interesting novel approach saying fake, deep fakes, AI.
02:50 Right. Did you did they consult? Did your staffer who filed that, did they consult with you about the deep fake AI rationale for not providing the audio to us?
03:00 You're mischaracterizing the filing. That was one of us. Again, a substantial number of arguments made in a freedom of information.
03:07 They consult with you specifically about that idea, that notion where they were going to say something like, quote, this is from the pleading.
03:17 The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence and deep fake technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files.
03:26 Did they consult with you about that provision? I'm not going to talk about internal department deliberations.
03:31 That was one of the large number of explanations in the document you're talking about.
03:37 And I'm talking specifically about that particularized rationale.
03:42 And you don't want to discuss it, which is why you're nonresponsive. And that's why we need the audio.
03:48 And let me explain why, because you're your attorney also said that you did alter the transcript and they said it was filler words, repeat words and and I.
04:02 But you know what? We don't know whether they're the blank.
04:05 He said there were blank times where there was silence. We don't know whether those were one minute long, two minutes long.
04:10 We don't know if he's sputtered for and and and and and because those were edited out.
04:17 We do not know whether this supports and substantiates Mr.
04:21 Her's findings, by the way, you want to rely on Mr.
04:25 Her, you need to go back and listen to his testimony. Mr.
04:28 Her was pretty conclusive there that we have that this that he had a poor memory.
04:34 He was not able to answer all the questions.
04:38 Substantively, the transcript may be accurate.
04:42 But you know what? The audio would tell us so much more, which is why, which is why the Supreme Court in the case that you poopooed when Mr.
04:51 Fitzgerald was asking about, they said, look, you know, if there's editing that's gone on here, that's the rationale.
04:58 And there was editing your own office admitted it, but you won't admit it today.
05:03 You've been nonresponsive. And that's why we need the audio. And that's why you're here.
05:08 >> Yield back. >> Harris. >> Still yields back.