Kevin Kiley Presents 'Smoking Gun' For DOJ's 'Purely Political' Withholding Of Biden-Hur Tapes

3 months ago

During remarks on the House floor, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) slammed the Department of Justice and the Biden Administration for not turning over the audio recordings of President Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.

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00:00For 30 minutes.

00:10Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

00:12In recent weeks, there have been growing concerns among many Americans relating to the capabilities

00:21of the President to carry out his duties.

00:25And not only that, but there have been concerns about the extent to which some in the White

00:30House, perhaps also in the Congress, have limited the ability of Americans to get access

00:39to the information that they need to form their own judgment as to those capabilities.

00:46And I think there's a lot that is going to be, need to be investigated in the weeks and

00:51months ahead in that regard.

00:53But I wanted to just highlight today what might be the most disturbing facet of this

01:00situation.

01:01And that is the systematic efforts by the Attorney General, the Justice Department,

01:08and the White House to illegally defy a congressional subpoena in order to deprive Americans of

01:15access to this sort of information.

01:19But I wanted to specifically highlight what is perhaps Exhibit A, you might even call

01:24it a smoking gun, that the White House acted in a consciously political way and deprived

01:32Americans of access to information, defied a congressional subpoena, defied the idea

01:38of the separation of powers and checks and balances for purely political reasons.

01:45For months, the Judiciary Committee, under its lawful oversight authority, asked for

01:52the Justice Department to produce the interviews that President Biden had with Special Counsel

01:58Herr.

02:00These interviews were conducted, of course, as part of an investigation into the President's

02:03mishandling of classified information.

02:07And the ultimate report produced by Special Counsel Herr stated that there was significant

02:13evidence the President had broken the law, but he was not going to recommend charges

02:17for, among other reasons, the fact that the President exhibited diminished faculties and

02:21a poor memory in the course of these interviews.

02:24So the House Judiciary Committee had several legitimate bases to request access to those

02:30interviews.

02:31And indeed, the Justice Department appeared to agree in as much as they did produce transcripts

02:36of those interviews.

02:37However, they have adamantly and consistently refused to actually provide the best available

02:43evidence of materials that they have agreed are pertinent to our oversight responsibilities,

02:48and that is the recordings themselves.

02:49These recordings exist.

02:51They're audio recordings that continue to be suppressed and concealed from the American

02:58people.

02:59And so what I have here is the letter from the White House Counsel, Edward Siskel, written

03:06to the Chairman of the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, formally invoking

03:12executive privilege.

03:13This happened after weeks and weeks and weeks of stonewalling for the Justice Department.

03:18It happened moments before a hearing was convened to hold the Attorney General to cite him in

03:23contempt.

03:24Suddenly, the President exerts executive privilege.

03:27And what they said in this letter, this line right here, is really the giveaway.

03:33You might even call it a smoking gun, where it says, the absence of a legitimate need

03:38for the audio recordings, of course, we did have a legitimate need for them cited repeatedly

03:42in correspondence, but this is what he says.

03:44The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recording lays bare your likely goal to chop

03:50them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.

03:54Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement materials from the

04:00executive branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.

04:07Now, first off, this might remind you of what we've been hearing now for weeks and

04:12for months about various videos posted online, that these were somehow selectively edited.

04:17These were deep fakes.

04:18These were eliminating context.

04:20We now know that all of that was, you know, fairly bogus in terms of what Americans have

04:26now seen plainly with their own eyes.

04:30But what's clearly going on in this paragraph is the White House is relying on a political

04:39justification for withholding the materials, but they know they can't state that explicitly,

04:44so they simply accuse us on the committee of having a political motivation.

04:50But it's actually, you don't even have to read between the lines.

04:53It's stated right there directly that they are afraid that these materials would be used

04:59against the president for potential political gain.

05:01In other words, they are afraid that they would be politically harmful to the president.

05:06But that is not, that is not a valid basis, valid legal basis for defying a congressional

05:12subpoena.

05:13It is not a valid basis for exerting, asserting executive privilege.

05:17And it is very revealing as far as what the White House knew about the recordings and

05:23about the concerns that the American people have in overwhelming numbers right now is

05:30they feared that what was revealed in those recordings would be politically disadvantageous

05:35to the president.

05:36And so as we continue to learn more about the efforts that have been undertaken by the

05:41White House to deprive Americans of their right to know the most crucial of information,

05:46I think that this report and this entire series of events related to the subpoena issued

05:54to the Attorney General is going to be a very important starting point.

Kevin Kiley Presents 'Smoking Gun' For DOJ's 'Purely Political' Withholding Of Biden-Hur Tapes

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