White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled on Thursday to defend the White House’s decision to block the release of President Joe Biden’s recorded interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.

Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio recordings from the criminal investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents in which Hur decided to not charge the president, in part due to him having a declined mental state.

The decision was conveyed to House leaders on Thursday in the hours before a pair of GOP-led committees were expected to move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings against Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to fully comply with subpoenas from February that demanded tapes of Hur’s two-day interview with Biden and of the special counsel’s interview with Biden’s ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.

KJP was asked about the decision to block the release of the tapes for political reasons.

“Why not just release them, especially with this White House’s commitment to transparency?” a reporter asked.

“Yeah. Well, one — for one, the transcript, as you all know, is already out there,” she responded. “I think the second piece of this, too, to note is that the attorney general made it clear that law enforcement files like these need to be protected. And so, the president made his determination at the request of the Attorney General. So, just want to make that second point that I made really clear.”

When asked whether the administration thought that the tapes could be “politically harmful,” KJP responded: “I can’t — I don’t want to get into — dive into the specific point that you’re making about the politics. I would have to ser- — refer you to our Counsel’s Office on that. But there were determinations that the president took very seriously on behalf of the — obviously, at the request of the attorney general. And that’s how this decision was made.”

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WATCH:

AP’s @SeungMinKim: “But does the White House feel that the recording — the audio could be politically harmful since that point was also raised in the letter?”

KJP: “So, I can’t — I don’t want to get into — dive into the specific — uh — uh — point that you’re making about the… pic.twitter.com/d0Xytoy13i

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 16, 2024