BREAKING: Biden asserts ‘executive privilege,’ blocks DOJ from releasing classified docs special counsel interview to Congress, claims it’s a ‘partisan political’ ask

White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer ahead of scheduled votes by House committees to refer Attorney General Merrick Garland to the Justice Department for contempt charges over his department’s refusal to hand over the audio, "As you know, yesterday the Attorney General requested that the President assert executive privilege over the audio recordings of his and Mark Zwonitzer’s interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur, which had been subpoenaed by the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees."

"Because of the President’s longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and independence of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement investigations, he has decided to assert executive privilege over the recordings."

"The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes."

“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate,” Siskel added.

In a separate letter made public on Thursday, Garland wrote to Biden, "The Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that the subpoenaed audio recordings fall within the scope of executive privilege and that you may assert executive privilege with respect to the recordings. I concur with this assessment."

"To date, the Committees have failed to satisfy any of the potentially relevant standards for overcoming an assertion of executive privilege. The Committees’ needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the delirious effects that production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future."

"I therefore respectfully request that you assert executive privilege over the subpoenaed recordings. I also request that you make a protective assertion of executive privilege with respect to any other materials responsive to the subpoenas that have not already been produced.

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Hur Audio Executive Privilege Letter by Hannah Nightingale on Scribd