Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is calling for the House of Representatives to take its contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Merrick Garland to court after the Department of Justice said it would not pursue charges.
Johnson will be “certifying the contempt records to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia,” according to CNN, while moving to “enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal court.”
“It is sadly predictable that the Biden administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing,” Johnson said on Friday. “This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden administration.”
Johnson’s decision to take to the courts comes after Carlos Uriarte, the DOJ’s top congressional liaison, rebuffed the GOP’s efforts to bring a case against Garland.
“Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” the DOJ’s letter read.
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On Wednesday, House lawmakers voted mostly along party lines to hold Garland in contempt of Congress. The move came as Republicans seek to hold the attorney general accountable for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena for the transcript of an interview former special counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Joe Biden last year.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.
