CNN host Jake Tapper recently interviewed Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). In the interview, Tapper criticized the Department of Justice for withholding the audio recordings of the interviews between President Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur. According to Tapper, there is “no basis” for withholding the recordings.

The CNN anchor and Goldman went back and forth, in disagreement, on the refusal to release the audio tapes, where the congressional Democrat claimed the recent effort from the GOP to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress is merely an attempt to smear the Biden administration.  However, Tapper maintained, “But there’s really no basis for the Justice Department to not give the audio recordings to Congress either.”

Goldman stated during the interview, “It’s a very disappointing day, and it’s another effort by the Republican Party to dig a deeper hole for this institution.  Contempt of Congress is a very serious charge, and we know from the Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon cases, those are situations where witnesses are subpoenaed and absolutely blow off various committees, provide no documents, no information.”

The New York Democrat claimed that the provision of the transcripts was sufficient to satisfy the requests of congressional Republicans.  “There is no legitimate legislative purpose for them to obtain the audio recording because they’re not prosecuting him, they’re not trying to determine whether to prosecute him, and there’s no legislation they can identify, there’s no oversight they can identify that points to why they need the audio recording,” he added.

He further suggested that the audio would only give Trump ammunition to “misconstrue” “And what they really want to do is release it to help Donald Trump misconstrue these recordings, use them during the campaign, and this is not a legitimate purpose,” he declared, also noting that the DOJ has gone “beyond the call of duty” in its cooperation with Congress so far.

Tapper noted three of the past five attorneys general have been found in contempt of Congress, adding a “citizen who doesn’t have a dog in the fight might say, ‘it seems to me as though the legislative branch is trying to do oversight of the executive branch and the executive branch keeps giving — whoever’s in charge of Congress — the executive branch consistently gives the finger to the House.’”

The American Tribune reported on the concerning findings from the transcripts of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.  Hur concluded, in part, that criminal charges should not be brought against Biden because of his elderly age and memory complications.  Republicans have sought the audio recordings of the interview.  Watch the interview between Tapper and Goldman below:

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory . . . It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” Hur stated.

Note:  The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.