BREAKING: Merrick Garland officially held in contempt of Congress

The vote passed 216 to 207, with one Republican voting alongside 206 Democrats against the resolution.

Biden in May asserted executive privilege over the audio. White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a letter at the time, "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."

Speaking before Congress in early June, Garland said he would not provide Congress with the audio because it would "chill cooperation with the department in future investigations."

Garland said his department went to "extraordinary lengths to ensure that the committee gets responses to its legitimate requests for information," noting that Hur’s report was provided as well as transcripts of the interview, and Hur testified before Congress for "more than five hours."

"But we have made clear that we will not provide audio recordings from which the transcripts that you already have were created," Garland said. "Releasing the audio would chill cooperation with the department in future investigations and it could influence witnesses’ answers if they thought the audio of their law enforcement interviews would be broadcast to Congress and the public."

The House Judiciary and Oversight Committees voted in May to approve a motion to hold Garland in contempt.

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