Exercise in futility

House holds Garland in Contempt of Congress

So will Merrick Garland actually charge himself with a crime? Since he runs the Department of Justice ultimately someone who answers to him would have to charge him? Seems less than unlikely.

Garland is the third AG in the past three Administrations to be held in contempt for failing to turn over documents. Eric Holder was almost unanimously held in contempt for failure to turn over documents regarding Fast and Furious. Bill Barr was voted in contempt along party lines for failure to send an unredacted version of the Mueller Special Counsel report (the redacted portions were in regards to ongoing criminal investigations rather than anything regarding Trump). Now we see another party line vote to hold Garland in contempt over the failure to provide the tapes of Joe Biden's interviews with Robert Hur.

Certainly of the three, the Barr one was nakedly political. The Democrats were upset that the report was not more damning to Trump, and used the vote against Barr to imply that what was being withheld was the damning part, which of course was untrue. It was not a decision that Barr just willy-nilly decided, but rather DOJ policy not to provide information on ongoing criminal investigation. Holder, on the other hand, simply had no justifiable reason to not turn over the information from fast and furious. There was no real DOJ privilege or policy that protected that information and no real justifiable executive privilege. The Administration simply did not want the information out there and Holder did Obama's bidding. Both sides of the congressional aisle wanted this information and there was no good reason why they didn't get it.

This is a similar situation where this is not a single good reason not to release the tapes, and even the excuses are silly. However, this is an election year, Biden is running for President, the tapes would likely be politically damaging, and therefor we see the partisan break down of Democrats not voting for the contempt. What particular use does the GOP in Congress have for seeing these tapes? Probably nothing other than the political nature of election politics. But when both sides are looking at politics, then the tie-breaker should just be the law, and the law suggests that these tapes need to be released.

Now we have the Garland indictment watch? Tick tock, tick tock...

hmmmm... what is the statute of limitations on Contempt of Congress?