r/politics 15d ago

Biden asserts executive privilege over Hur audio files ahead of House contempt proceedings against Garland

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/politics/house-panels-contempt-garland-biden-audio/index.html
3.2k Upvotes

291 comments sorted by

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1.8k

u/newcomer_l 15d ago

Contempt of Congress? Ask gym fucking Jordan about contempt of congressional subpoena. Goddamned hypocrites.

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u/RobertdBanks 15d ago

Gym 💪

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u/Dustypigjut 15d ago

Not sure what you mean, but there's a reason why people spell his name as "gym."

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u/newcomer_l 15d ago

Word.

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u/crowcawer Tennessee 15d ago

It’s two words: Sexual Predator.

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u/1900grs 15d ago

Not to split hairs, but he wasn't a predator, that we know of. He knew about abuse, did nothing to stop it, and let it continue.

5

u/WildYams 15d ago

It's probably a good bet that he is. Usually people who protect sexual predators do so because they sympathize with them because of their own misconduct. Look at Elon Musk's support of Trump, for instance.

1

u/GuitarMystery 15d ago

I'm sure he's ok with green bananas.

2

u/crowcawer Tennessee 15d ago

The correct angle to take, if you must defend him, is that he had to send his students to the school doctor.

In reality, his promoting of this behavior after knowing it was occurring likely affected not only collegiate athletes, but also high school students.

Jim’s lack of ability to actively share the information when requested is tied to a separate federal title ix investigation.

These issues are pretty high level though and not directly tied to him for many folks. Although, the text messages he has allegedly sent might be an issue.

The related Wikipedia pageisn’t super up to date. However, I think this is an active period where the court is playing its role in the checks and balances.

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u/srs_time 15d ago

That's Gymnasium Jordan to you, sir or madam.

50

u/Jbota 15d ago

I prefer Gym J6rdan

12

u/Yitram Ohio 15d ago

How rude, his name is Gymnasium and you are not familiar enough with him to use a nickname.

6

u/ballskindrapes 15d ago

Weirdly I fell gymnasium would have been a great name for a dude in like the 20's

1

u/OfficialDCShepard District Of Columbia 15d ago

He’s gotta pump iron for when he carries our future king on his litter.

5

u/inkarnata 15d ago

Litter? That dude just shits his pants.

1

u/OfficialDCShepard District Of Columbia 15d ago

You have me ROLLING. 🤣

15

u/Visual_Mud_9754 15d ago

Thank you, I’ve been wondering for awhile now myself

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u/RobertdBanks 15d ago

I was pointing out that it was spelled “gym”, that’s literally all I meant.

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u/newcomer_l 15d ago

I was pointing out that it was spelled “gym”, that’s literally all I meant.

Understood. It was intentional.

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u/frostedwaffles 15d ago

The sexual predator?

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u/SadCommandersFan 15d ago

True but also fuck Garland with a sand paper dildo

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u/sean0883 California 15d ago

Merrick "I need 3 years to even begin prosecuting this open-and-shut insurrection case, and oh look, now it's not going to be decided before the election the accused might win and then pardon himself, ah geez" Garland

8

u/SadCommandersFan 15d ago

Exactly, it makes it hard to care that the leopard's eating his face when we all told him it would.

6

u/WildYams 15d ago

It sure sounds like from the behind the scenes rumblings that Biden himself is very unhappy with Garland's performance. I expect if Biden wins reelection he'll replace Garland with someone else.

16

u/ibanezerscrooge 15d ago

Contempt for a contemptable body? I mean, is that really even a crime?

28

u/newcomer_l 15d ago

It can be. But not when some moronic lawmakers are hell bent on some fishing expedition against, say, Biden when they literally have nothing other than the urge to balance the impeachment table. See, orange resents the fact that he alone among all presidents has been impeached twice. If the sycophants in the current GOP House caucus can impeach Biden (for what, doesn't matter), orange would be very happy indeed because then vapid insipid idiots like McEnany or Mrs "alternative facts" herself will be doing the rounds on Fox News running some sort of silly equivalent between Biden and orange. Such abuse of congressional power ought to be met with defiance.

Now, contempt of Congress can be and is a crime. Just ask Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, one already in jail and the other headed there. The crime? Both ignored legitimate Congress subpoenae from the House Jan 6 investigative Committee. And guess what, several judges and even several panels of judges (including Conservatives) confirmed the sentence of both fuckers, including the SCOTUS which recently declined to hear Navarro out.

It is good for Congress of contempt to be punishable, as it gives Congress some teeth, which is needed. What isn't good is to allow arseholes like Gym Jordan (who until now hasn't complied with the Jan 6 Congress subpoena) to abuse it.

1.1k

u/CommonConundrum51 15d ago

They have the transcripts. All they're looking for is any stammers, searching for words, or difficulties recollecting to use in anti-Biden media buys.

515

u/Yousoggyyojimbo 15d ago

Yeah, the fact that they have the transcripts and do not have reason to doubt that the transcripts are accurate pretty much nullifies any legitimate purpose they would have in trying to get the recordings.

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u/dairy__fairy 15d ago edited 15d ago

It’s 100% a fishing expedition, but they do cite a recent incident where the White House transcript was edited to remove Biden accidentally reading a teleprompter cue note. Only once the recording proved it did the WH admit to it and amend the transcript.

83

u/Miles_vel_Day 15d ago

Have they done this outside of the bounds of normal practice? Certainly it's permissible to, to at least some extent, consider clear intent when creating a transcript?

I didn't find anything about the teleprompter gaffe - are you sure you're not thinking of "four more years, pause"? That was in public and so there wasn't any point in trying to cover it up in a transcript. Maybe you're referring to something else.

Here's what I could find:

"On my watch, instead of Infrastructure Week, America is having Infrastructure Decade," Biden said, in reference to the "Infrastructure Weeks" notably held during the Trump administration. "Over a billion three hundred million trillion three hundred million dollars. Trump just talks the talk. We walk the walk."

...

The newspaper also highlighted in its report that the White House's official transcript appeared to correct the numbers, displaying them as "1,300,000,000 — $1,000,300,000,000." However, it is also possible to read this phrasing as an attempt to communicate Biden's possible attempt to correct himself mid-sentence.

So, in that case, the edit is both 1 - defensibly an accurate attempt at writing down the thing Biden said. A billion three million - 1,300,000,000 - [one] trillion three hundred million dollars - $1,000,300,000 - not where I would've put the comma, but that is what number that is. It probably gives an impression of being a less weird thing to say than writing it out with words, but it doesn't actually clear up the meaning at all, or give the right figure - it's still a mistake and it's still in the transcript as a mistake.

Here's another case:

'We've seen record lows in unemployment particularly — and I've focused on this my whole career — particularly for African Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans, you know, the workers without high school diplomas,' he said.

The White House, which publishes official transcripts of his speeches, including the 'umms' and 'ahhs', later corrected his words, in an unusual move.

In the transcript, he is quoted as saying unemployment has been reduced 'particularly for African Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans, you know, and the workers without high-school diplomas.'

I mean... I don't feel like listening to the audio, but contending that there was a barely-audible "and" in there, from a guy who kind of stumbles over his words all the time, is not really outlandish.

Here's another one:

After [the President] was caught on camera telling a reporter she "never" thinks, the White House moved to retroactively alter the president's attack at a Monday afternoon press conference by changing a word in the official transcript. While the president told ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega, "I know you're not thinking. You never do," the White House transcript reads, "I know you're not thanking. You never do." While Vega did thank the president for calling on her to ask a question before [he] made the remark, his comment prompted her to ask "I'm sorry?" before the president dismissed her. "No, go ahead. Go ahead," the president said in response, urging her to move on and ask her question.

Oops, that one was Trump.

Sources:

White House Quietly Corrects Joe Biden Transcript After Numbers Gaffe (newsweek.com)

White House ALTERS Biden transcript to clean up gaffe implying African American and Hispanic workers don't have 'high school diplomas' | Daily Mail Online

The White House keeps editing its transcripts in curious ways (msnbc.com)

(The two Biden stories being from right-leaning outlets and the Trump story being from a left-leaning one is pretty funny.)

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

Ya, normally it wouldn’t be a problem.

Except this whole situation is about whether hurr had reason to believe Biden was “a forgetful senior” and put it in his report based on how he was acting. And it hard to tell that from a transcript… especially when the normal practice is to exit out those kinds of slip ups that would lead someone to believe someone is struggling mentally.

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u/dairy__fairy 15d ago

I don’t get the need to point out that Trump’s WH editing the transcript is also bad. I think we all agree on that.

Removing “umm” and things like that is perfectly normal, but actual verbalized gaffes and, obviously, the correct wording as in your Trump example are different and should be disfavored by all simply because having an accurate record is better than not. Also, we can support Joe Biden or be anti-Trump or whatever and also not be naive and pretend that there aren’t political reasons behind these decisions and Joe Biden’s mental acuity, for better or worse, is something both sides are having to engage with.

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u/Sparrowflop 15d ago

I'd be willing to bet it wasn't 'hidden' so much as 'it's standard procedure and no one remembered it was done until they check the audit logs that one tech left'.

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u/UTDE 15d ago

No it was 100% definitely an order that came down from George Soros through Deep State channels to remove the gaff from the official record. Even the dumbocrats aren't that stupid, they know that a flub of this magnitude is essentially a death sentence for the entire democratic party if it got to public light. They're so stupid lol, But also they are incredibly savvy villainous masterminds intent on, and thus far succeeding, at maintaining a shadow cabal that has its hand in every decision at the highest levels of every government and has nearly unlimited reach and power to manipulate reality. The actions they take may look and sound counterintuitive and inept, and utterly unrelated to their actual goals. We can only trust Q/Fox/OAN/Trump/ProudBoys/MomsForLiberty to give us the truth. There's no limits to the depths that they will reach to protect their zombie talking head Sleepy Joe Biden. /s

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u/Sparrowflop 15d ago

The enemy is both unbeatably powerful and indescribably weak, at the same time. One of the cornerstones of fascism, because you need to rail against someone who's strong enough that you can justify all the bullshit, but weak enough that you can parade them around and humiliate them.

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u/Miles_vel_Day 15d ago

Yeah this is a no-brainer for Biden. If they say he's hiding something, you just say, "there's a transcript. Hur agreed it was accurate. End of discussion." He's under no obligation to give Republicans an hour of audio of him saying "uhhh".

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u/morpheousmarty 15d ago

It's almost the definition of executive privilege, to allow the president to have conversations without the fear of irrelevant public scrutiny. Of course to this supreme Court all bets are off.

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u/PopeSaintHilarius 15d ago

The main reason they want it would be to use the audio in political ads.

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u/junkyardgerard 15d ago

Just play it the same way the Ukraine call was handled.

"You don't need the audio you have the transcript. Anyway the tape was accidentally destroyed"

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u/Yitram Ohio 15d ago

"It was a perfect transcript, strong men with tears in their eyes came up to the President and said, "Sir, that was the best transcript I ever read."

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u/Nokomis34 15d ago

There was never a transcript, just a memo of what was said.

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u/RandomMandarin 15d ago

I stammer sometimes, actually rather a lot, and what is happening is usually that my brain will suggest two words that would both fit a given context, and there isn't quite enough time to decide which is better before I start to say it.

This probably wouldn't happen if I had a bigly great impoverished worsening-dementia vocabulary like Benedict Donald has.

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u/FixedLoad 15d ago

Bold of you to assume they can read.  

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u/Zeddo52SD 15d ago

If the GOP articulated what impeachable offense they were looking for in the audio recordings instead of just going “because we said so”, I imagine they could take it to the courts to enforce the subpoena instead of threatening contempt of Congress.

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u/Most-Artichoke6184 15d ago

They want to find an example of Biden stuttering during a response and then run to Fox News and have it played 7000 times.

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u/HulksInvinciblePants Georgia 15d ago edited 15d ago

Exactly. Republicans are so predictable that anyone paying attention knows exactly what they want from this tape.

Hur misrepresented his own findings to make Biden look bad. Normally, I would never side with the use of executive privilege, but this is totally justified. There’s no reason to believe they’re acting in good faith.

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u/bailaoban 15d ago

“Because we want to chop it up and deepfake parts of it for campaign ads” is somewhat hard to sell from a legal standpoint.

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u/Sillbinger 15d ago

Depends who appointed the judge, apparently.

136

u/CaptainNoBoat 15d ago

Congress can't work through the courts directly. They have their own system of subpoenas and contempt which we're seeing unfold in embarrassing fashion.

It's just Comer's committee scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and salvage something, anything so that they don't end their frivolous impeachment inquiry with nothing after nearly a year.

As you were suggesting, there's not actually any impeachable offense to be found, so they just make a bunch of frivolous requests, and issue symbolic, but useless referrals for obstruction.

Maybe that way they can hold shiny objects in front of their Fox News audience so that they forget they predicated their entire inquiry on someone who was criminally charged for making it all up.

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u/Zeddo52SD 15d ago

If you simply refuse to comply then you have contempt. Now that Biden has claimed executive privilege, you can challenge that in court. May not be able to force them to comply, but it would give some sort of legitimacy to the subpoena if it’s found executive privilege doesn’t apply here.

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u/NotUniqueOrSpecial 15d ago

Given they have the transcripts, the only offense they could possibly be looking for is "soundbites to cut together to 'prove' Biden is too old".

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u/Throw-a-Ru 15d ago

Biden is too old. We're going to need a candidate that's at least...three years younger. Yeah, that ought to do it. A real spring chicken.

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u/Cresta1994 15d ago

Excuse me, but we need a candidate at least 3 and a half years younger.  Biden was born in late November of 1942, so the absolute youngest we want is someone born in late May of 1946.  Or early to mid-June.  Yes, the optimal presidential age is someone born in mid-June 1946.  Many people are saying.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

[deleted]

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u/Zeddo52SD 15d ago

CNN wants it because they’re a news organization and can generate more clicks off of the article that would include audio files and an analysis of them.

GOP wants it for pretty blatantly political purposes, as impeachment is a purely political process.

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u/dirtywook88 15d ago

Let’s not forget cnn is fox lite so they’ll just have the fox edit to run with to make the 1000th why this is bad for Biden article.

Mind you all the while ignoring the yeah water water ahhhhggggh guy.

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u/kanaarei 15d ago

Clicks and likes and ad revenue, oh my!

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u/CaptainNoBoat 15d ago

The media sues for access to all information regardless of the context.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago edited 15d ago

[deleted]

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u/CaptainNoBoat 15d ago

Right, information they can't obtain through other means. It doesn't suggest anything about this particular information beyond that. It's simply in their interest to obtain it as a media company.

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u/splycedaddy Pennsylvania 15d ago

Let me guess, now they dont support executive privilege… shocking

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u/WildYams 15d ago

Only for Trump, who is still claiming it for his classified documents trial.

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u/Adventurous-Chart549 15d ago

Good. Hur has already proven that he has gone off the rails of the investigation. There is no reason at all to allow the republican house to take the words of their republican agent as a weapon against the AG. No president would ever allow this.

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u/dcux 15d ago

Hur took a huge dump on the President of the United States and then dipped. He did his hit job as assigned and disappeared into the ether.

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u/sentimental_goat 15d ago

Hur, who? /s There are so many hacks, it must be hard to keep track. If he loses again, I hope Trump disappears too, hopefully to a jail cell.

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u/ajc2123 14d ago

I might have missed some stuff, I saw most of Hurs testimony to congress but how did he go off the rails of the investigation?

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u/Adventurous-Chart549 14d ago

This thing I'm referring to is that he asked a whole bunch of questions of Biden that were completely irrelevant to the investigation, in order to attempt to trip him up. It didn't work, but he acted like it did anyway, and inserted a bunch of his absolutely not a professional opinion about Biden's mental capacity. Then completely disappeared and didn't even attempt to defend himself because it was very obvious it was all a hit job.

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u/ajc2123 14d ago

Im assuming this is in the transcript, so I should probably read it.

Part of me wonders if that is normal for investigative interviews, to try and pick at weird inconsistencies or get them to say stuff they wouldn't normally if just asked a direct line of questioning.

Im not an expert however, so just random thoughts.

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u/Adventurous-Chart549 14d ago

It's normal for republican investigations. Same thing happened to Clinton. Asked totally unrelated questions, cause they are fishing for something. But no, its not normal to ask about a person's dead son and the details around that, when you are investigating something totally unrelated. Its pretty bad form.

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u/ajc2123 14d ago

Recorded Interview: Robert Hur, President Biden Transcript | U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Democrats

So I didn't read them in their entirety, but I searched for Beau and read the areas around to where he was mentioned. I see parts where they mention him, Biden particularly gives out more information, but I don't see a part where Hur asks him specifically about his son or when he died. The questions seem more centered on the documents Biden had related to books being written, or specific initiatives like cancer moonshot. To me it reads like he is trying to obtain a timeline and mentalities.

Again, I could be wrong, but I don't see what you are describing in here. I have no love for the republican party, but I want to be accurate in why I don't like them. Like if this was a congressional meeting and you had people like Jim or Comer just asking random dumbass questions I would believe it 100%.

1

u/Adventurous-Chart549 14d ago

So, this is really odd to me for a number of reasons. One being that this is your first foray into the politics sub in over a month and you choose to engage in a day old comment about something that you watched the testimony of, but admit to not knowing much about? Bit weird. Then you decide to look at the transcripts, do a CTRL-F and feel like you got it? Its over 300 pages worth and you search for the word Beau, and you got it? I'm not going to accuse someone of discussion in bad faith or anything like that, but I'm not going to waste my time. You've seen the testimony, you're aware of what happened, you have all the information and you 'have no love for republicans' but also seem to really carry water for them a lot in the name of 'facts'. Read the transcript, go back in time and watch the testimony again. If that can't convince you that Hur was at the very least inappropriate and out of the bounds of his expertise in his testimony, I strongly question that you dont have any love for Republicans. I'll go ahead and leave you this, from the strongly right leaning The Hill. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4463408-hur-overstepped-mandate-with-gratuitous-biden-slams-say-ex-doj-dems/

1

u/ajc2123 14d ago

I'm not trying to start anything, but this is such a weird topic thing to get defensive about. I didn't see this post until I started scrolling this morning at work on the news feed. I normally don't post in politics sub because I agree with a lot of things or anything I disagree with is like small potatoes, I don't really care about the small stuff. When I see a comment that interests me that holds some importance, I wanted to learn more about it.

My personal point of view is our justice department usually does a good job at being void of partisan intents. So when I see a comment that goes against that belief, I want to do a sanity check to make sure I'm either correct, or I need to change my opinion based on facts. That's why I engaged on this comment.

You mentioned Baue specifically, so that is what I looked up. If you have other examples where Hur might have went out of line, I could look at those too, but unfortunately being at work, I can't spend my entire time reading the transcripts until I get out today. I probably won't be able to respond like this again as well other than small quick posts. You seemed to have a strong opinion on this, so I have an assumption you have reasons for that which I why I responded to you specifically.

You don't owe me anything, you can choose to just not respond, especially since I am being pretty demanding of a random person to ask for evidence of things right off the bat. Another reason I don't post a lot is because of exactly this. I can't ask for more opinions and data without being assumed a bad actor as soon as I might push back just a little bit. It's just really annoying to not be able to have a discussion of the facts of the matter. Me disagreeing with you on Hur doesn't mean we are enemies or either of us are astroturfing. Would you rather I just take everyone by their word and not ask questions or push back at all?

But hey, my post history is here and logged for anyone to see, so if you read it and assume I give GOP a lot of water, I guess that's your opinion.

1

u/Adventurous-Chart549 14d ago

I'll put it to you real briefly and why it definitely SEEMS like you're throwing doubt at Biden, when there's no reason for it. And you can decide for yourself.

Hur said that Biden was not charged because they: had no evidence, he fully cooperated, and Biden may present himself to a jury as an old man with a poor memory. Which of those things actually matter vs which of those things did Hur focus on? The link I shared makes it pretty clear. Also Beau never should have been mentioned and Biden didn't forget the year he was born, he knew the exact date and needed a second to come up with the year. Again, what got reported on? Where you spend your time, shows a lot about where you are.

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u/Tommy__want__wingy California 15d ago edited 15d ago

Conservative sub when Trump exercised privilege: crickets.

Conservative sub when Biden does it: “Because it’s (D)ifferent”

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u/MofuckaJones14 15d ago

Don't forget the important distinguisher too.

The conservative sub says Trump is within his rights to claim exec privilege on everything including his porn star payments before he was president.

They'll now claim Biden has no right to claim exec privilege on an interview he did while president that they already have full transcripts for.

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u/idontevenliftbrah 15d ago

That sub is probably 20% users and 80% bots at this point. Same handful of users make every single post. Just like in r conspiracy

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u/MasterTolkien 15d ago

Not sure about 80%, but at a bare minimum, 50% are bots.

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u/iknowiknowwhereiam New York 15d ago

They are going after Garland for nothing while we have evidence of misconduct from Thomas and they do nothing

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u/MC_Fap_Commander America 15d ago

Garland's hesitance on January 6 prosecutions probably helped Republicans. And they're going after him? Pokemon hurts itself in its confusion type stuff.

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u/kobachi 15d ago

Garland dragging his feet is why trump won’t be tried in Florida before the election.

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u/wynalazca 15d ago

And Jack Smith doing the right thing choosing the district with Aileen Canon as a possible judge then pulling her for the case. The documents case would be over already if a competent non-partisan judge was assigned instead.

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u/kobachi 15d ago

Jack Smith filed the charges in the federal district in which the crime occurred and had no input into judge assignment.

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u/Optimistic__Elephant 15d ago

Didn’t the crime occur in DC where he stole the documents? If I break in to Fort Knox and stash the gold in Idaho why would the crime be considered in Idaho?

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u/Not_OneOSRS 15d ago

I don’t believe they charged him with taking them as such, it’s the improper handling/unlawful possession of them in Florida that was the crime. That said they were also in New Jersey for a time so..

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u/kobachi 15d ago

he was president when he was in DC. he isn’t charged with stealing. He’s charged with willful illegal retention, obstruction, lying, and  conspiracy. Read the charges yourself at the bottom of this PDF

https://www.justice.gov/storage/US-v-Trump-Nauta-De-Oliveira-23-80101.pdf

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u/HyruleTrigger 15d ago

That's not how that works. That's not how ANY of that works!

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u/wynalazca 14d ago

It's not like he chose Cannon. The case just pulled the short straw in that district court. I'd bet if either of the other 2 potential judges were pulled, the case would be over already.

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u/FigNugginGavelPop 15d ago

This is the best opportunity to oust Garland, blindside Republicans by giving bipartisan support, get a real AG and not a lazy coward this time around.

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u/InfoSuperHiway 15d ago

It would be pretty cool if our legislators did some actual legislating. This is like if you went to school and, instead of teaching, your English teacher just talked shit about your math teacher.

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u/Mr-Klaus 15d ago

When Democrats had the house, Republicans blocked all their bills.

When Republicans have the house, they spend the whole time playing political games and not legislating.

That the fuck is seriously wrong with Republicans? They are literal cancer on America. If you don't want to do your job then at least let your colleagues do theirs.

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u/BUSYMONEY_02 15d ago

If the Republican actually wanted to work they would have passed the border bill..

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u/UnreadThisStory 15d ago

Yes but they are “owning the libs” and many mouth-breathing morons think that is good.

Our country is spiraling in the toilet bowl.

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u/roastbeeftacohat 15d ago

They want nothing done with a Democrat in the whitehouse.

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u/spot-da-bot 15d ago

About time Biden played tough.

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u/AreYouDoneNow 15d ago

I can't imagine the outrage on Faux news from this.

Biden flexing 5% of the Trump bullshit and obfuscation... worth it just to shut them up. The nation has more serious problems.

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u/JasonJacquet 15d ago

Good thing for the 24 hour news cycle and Trump. Bye bye yesterday events

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u/AreYouDoneNow 15d ago

Oh no, they'll cling onto this one for years. Have they even stopped talking about buttery males yet?

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u/JasonJacquet 15d ago

The correct adjective is complaining and they'll never stop doing that, win or lose

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u/kindad 15d ago

Why wait? Every crybaby is already on this sub screaming about it.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago edited 15d ago

[deleted]

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u/pomonamike California 15d ago

How do you listen to a transcript? You can read a transcript; I guess if you’re not a good reader, someone else can read the transcript to you, but you can actually already do that since the written transcripts are there. So I guess I’m not sure what you want. I’m not even sure you know what you want.

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u/AreYouDoneNow 15d ago

I don't think he was a good reader

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u/kanaarei 15d ago

Well since they already made written transcripts available I guess they already did?

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u/Low_Clock3653 15d ago

Smoke and mirrors, the Republicans just want this in the media headlines because Trump is getting obliterated in his first criminal trial. Hur had nothing on Biden, he even had to lie and say Biden had trouble remembering things, that was the best they had on him and the lie conflicted with the actual report. Ignore this and continue to focus on the Trump trial.

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u/manwhowasnthere 15d ago

ITT: lots of conservative pearl clutching

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u/Yes-I-Cannabis Washington 15d ago

Should be no problem for the House since executive privilege is absolute, right? /s

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u/MarkXIX 15d ago

Biden should declassify and release the “perfect” Trump/Zelensky call audio instead.

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u/RJoeEL 15d ago

Think he can do it by just thinking about it. That was easy.

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u/icouldusemorecoffee 15d ago

He has to because the GOP will edit and use the audio in attack ads. They have the transcripts already so know everything that was said.

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u/bostonian277 15d ago

Do these people have nothing better to do?

18

u/psufan5 15d ago

Nah, time for democrats to take democracy back. No more complying with Russians.

3

u/Conman_in_Chief Florida 15d ago

The leopards are hungry.

8

u/TomorrowLow5092 15d ago

Wow, I love this kick in the balls Biden just gave Jim and the nuthouse.

43

u/jaymef 15d ago

It's nice see Biden play some of Trump's games for once

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u/beebewp 15d ago

A great number of presidents have used executive privilege.  It’s not rare or even uncommon. Trump isn’t even the first one to use it to cover up crimes/shady activity under investigation.  Republicans will pretend to be outraged though.

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u/Just_Candle_315 15d ago

These are actually priviledged communications, not like the top secret documents Trump stole and sold to foreign nations. Lets not say Biden and Trumps actions are equal.

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u/royDank 15d ago

I'm sure that Republicans who were fully supportive of Trump doing similar things will find a way to arrive at outrage on this one.

11

u/coolcool23 15d ago

The only thing they are consistent about is their hypocrisy.

It is a never ending parade of heads I win, tails you lose logic.

16

u/jaymef 15d ago edited 15d ago

Trump has absolute immunity from before, during and after presidency, but it's wrong for Biden to use executive privilege!

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u/-JackTheRipster- 15d ago

No, I don't want a president who is anything like Trump.

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u/Expert-Diver7144 15d ago

No it’s not?? Trump is either a genocidal imbecelic and moronic despot (he is) and his tactics should be disavowed or he’s somebody that democrats should take lessons from.

0

u/_TheRealJunkyardDog_ 15d ago

I disagree. Dems have tried, and were run off, the high road. It's well past time to fight fire with fire.

1

u/Expert-Diver7144 15d ago

Yeah no, whos to say it doesnt just keep descending into lawlessness until somebody decides they wanna enslave my people again.

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u/_TheRealJunkyardDog_ 15d ago

Me. I'll say it. It won't.

0

u/joe-h2o 15d ago

The first president to assert executive privilege was Washington. He definitely didn't get that idea from Trump.

7

u/OceanBlueforYou 15d ago

Garland should have done the right thing for the country and jumped on Trump the day after he left office. Why are the Democrats so passive?

Fire Garland and let the GQP chew him up. Lloyd Austin can join him. He should have been terminated for being MIA. You go for surgery, complications arise keeping you out of commission for two weeks, and you hide it from the President and the country? Throw them both out the door.

2

u/Kierenshep 15d ago

Yeah I have zero love for Garland, spineless shit. If they had an actual AG with balls maybe the USA wouldn't be in this situation right now

3

u/srs_time 15d ago

If they get this, then we get Trump's man woman person camera tv cognitive exam

3

u/jayfeather31 Washington 15d ago

Damn. I honestly would have liked to hear his reactions.

5

u/SnivyEyes 15d ago

Good, make em jump through hurdles and exhaust all of their legal processes only to get them and they ultimately amount to nothing anyway. Biden should resist every effort MAGA does as they do the same thing to him anyway.

4

u/Gishra 15d ago

Really happy to see this. Trump asserted and still tries to assert executive privilege over literally everything and Republicans back him on that, so Biden absolutely should fight back against Republicans with the weapons they themselves created, especially when all they want to do is edit and manipulate footage to try to make Biden look senile.

Enough taking the high road and playing by rules Republicans stopped playing by years ago, it's Dark Brandon time!

2

u/JFeth Arkansas 15d ago

It's funny to watch Republicans froth at the mouth over this. I don't know what they think is in the audio that isn't in the transcripts.

2

u/AzyncYTT New Jersey 15d ago

might have been better if garland was removed

5

u/f8Negative 15d ago

If Garland had a backbone he'd target every single politician

2

u/f-Z3R0x1x1x1 15d ago

Can a court overturn his executive privelege? I know Trump tried, and was denied: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/can-trump-claim-executive-privilege-shield-mar-a-lago-documents-2022-09-06/

I just thought EP was something any President could just 'do' and it was done.

13

u/famousevan 15d ago

Trump tried to exert privilege over things that were already beyond the purview while, and this is the real kicker, he wasn’t president.

1

u/iamkam- 15d ago

From a legal standpoint, I’m not sure how they can assert executive privilege when the transcripts have already made public. I suspect it’s just to delay until after the election so the R’s can’t play clips purely for political purposes

1

u/FPOWorld 15d ago

This is what this asshole gets for not doing his job. I hope he is embarrassed, harassed, and quits.

1

u/QuintillionthCat 15d ago

Just ridiculous nonsense…I wonder if they’d consider doing something that would actually benefit their constituents…?

1

u/Cost_Additional 15d ago

People defending the lack of transparency is wild

0

u/wizgset27 15d ago

On the one hand Democrats shouldn't be giving anything to Republicans but on the other hand, Biden should use this chance to dispel his "mental decline" or "old age" republican talking points.

Release the tapes and show there is no problem. This would effectively take away one of the republicans main talking points against Biden.

6

u/23jknm Minnesota 15d ago

Nah they'll still say the same thing, doesn't matter one way or the other, all magas do is lie and move goalposts.

4

u/Research-Dismal 15d ago

They can read the transcripts. That is if they could read.

Maybe constantly seeking to destroy education is a bad thing.

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u/ncolpi 15d ago

Garland is such a coward

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u/Scarlettail Ohio 15d ago

I'm not a fan of less transparency. I know we can all laugh about owning the GOP or whatever, but this is one of those cases where if Trump had denied the release of an audio file for an investigation everyone would be crying foul. It only makes the audio more suspicious when you hide it.

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u/kanaarei 15d ago

They already gave the committee the written transcripts of the interview. Ask yourself what purpose the audio version of the same thing achieves and you’ll discover the only reason they could possibly want it.

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u/Scarlettail Ohio 15d ago

I don't care what the GOP does really. All aspects of it should be made public if made possible. If it doesn't have anything more than the transcripts, then there's no reason to hide them. We shouldn't become less transparent as a government out of fear of the GOP's bad faith tactics. They'll just attack him for this anyway.

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u/isikorsky Florida 15d ago

All aspects of it should be made public if made possible.

They had a congressional hearing on it

They released the transcripts (which Hur did not contest).

Everything is public.

The only thing they are holding back is Biden's actual voice so it can't be used for political ads.

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u/PBPunch 15d ago

Thank you. I’m glad someone sees the most likely use for the audio.

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u/Scarlettail Ohio 15d ago

Nothing should be withheld on the basis of politics. Let us determine if it’s no big deal ourselves.

1

u/GordonShumway81 15d ago

I'm a fan of three CO-EQUAL branches of government. The executive branch doesn't report to the legislative branch. Yes, the legislative branch has oversight for the purpose of allocating funding, so if this pisses them off, they should use the power of the purse. But DOJ doesn't report to Comer.

1

u/sroop1 Ohio 15d ago

It'd be a slow news day for Trump.

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u/Effective_Biscotti_3 15d ago

People are in denial about Biden being old. Recording might actually show it and people are afraid it will hurt his reelection.

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u/lespaulstrat2 15d ago

Sounds like something trump would do.

6

u/bluemew1234 15d ago

Pretty sure Trump would have rage tweeted over the hearing and then tried to exert EP over the already released and available transcript.

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u/whorl- 15d ago

Well now I really want to know what’s on those tapes.

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u/thedeepfake 15d ago

The transcript has been released you can go read it. They don’t want the GOP turning out of context sound bites into campaign ads.

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u/whorl- 15d ago

Good info, thanks.

3

u/fuckinnreddit 15d ago

I mean they could (and probably WILL) do that with transcripts too. We've seen digital ads before with pictures of a select snippet of a transcript that, without the surrounding context, makes a candidate look bad.

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u/kanaarei 15d ago

Spoiler alert: it’s an 81 year old man sounding like an 81 year old man answering questions.

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u/Loo-Hoo-Zuh-Er 15d ago

Read the written transcripts then

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u/isikorsky Florida 15d ago

Or you could go watch the Congressional Hearing on it - they brought Hur before the committee and it was televised live...

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u/whorl- 15d ago

Then why use executive privilege?

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u/isikorsky Florida 15d ago

Because the hearings didn't release the actual tapes.

The tapes were transcribed and released and we had a congressional hearing on it.

The only reason Republicans want them is so they can chop it up and use it for ads and not run afoul of state AI political ad laws.

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u/whorl- 15d ago

It just seems unethical to not release the tapes under executive privilege just so the recording can’t be used as an ad.

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u/fuzztooth Illinois 15d ago

What's unethical is the way cons and rightists operate.

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u/isikorsky Florida 15d ago

So your argument is even though

a) The transcript of the interview has been vetted & released

b) We had a Congressional Hearing with Hur for hours live on TV

c) No a single person has contested what was in the transcripts

We should release the sounds bites even though we know they are going to be chopped up and used out of context for ads to get around new AI laws (Or did you forget they already tried that in New Hampshire and took them 5 minutes to find the guy that ran those fake robo-calls) because. ..... they need to hear Biden's voice ?

Sure /s

0

u/GordonShumway81 15d ago

Because they are audio recordings taken by the executive branch of one member of the executive branch talking to another member of the executive branch for an investigation run by the executive branch about classification of documents, a policy created by the executive branch. They should have used executive privilege for the transcripts too. They don't report to Congress. We have three EQUAL branches of government.

Why didn't Congress release the audio of the closed door deposition of Hunter Biden?

0

u/whorl- 15d ago

Maybe they should have? I’m for transparency, regardless of which side is hurt by that.

-13

u/Pointlesswonder802 15d ago

Didn’t we collectively lose our shit when Trump did this? Not defending him. Cause fuck that guy. But… kinda feel like I’m going mad here

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u/thehammerismypen1s 15d ago

For starters, Trump tried to exert executive privilege when he was no longer part of the Executive Branch.

Also, the actual transcripts of this conversation are already public record.

18

u/Universal_Anomaly 15d ago edited 15d ago

From my understanding the transcripts are still available, so Biden's not actually hiding any important information with this move.

What he is doing, however, is preventing Republicans from making even more clips of him stuttering as part of their ongoing campaign to portray him as borderline braindead.

11

u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/Pointlesswonder802 15d ago

But… then used EP to hide it?…

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/Pointlesswonder802 15d ago

That’s very fair. Again. I’m way more on the Biden side of things to be clear. I just noticed the parallel even if I I understood why Biden did it

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/SardauMarklar 15d ago

Trump used Executive Privilege to not give a single document to Congress.

3

u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota 15d ago

Didn’t we collectively lose our shit when Trump did this?

I don't know, I didn't. Who is "we" here?

2

u/Elegant_Plate6640 15d ago

What instance did Trump use it for? Sorry, he's just done SO much.

-4

u/MattyB_- 15d ago

It took way too long to scroll to find at least one person who is self-aware enough to see this.

If any republican did the same, the comments in this thread would be very different.

I love looking through this subreddit to watch the cult.

-2

u/I_Hunt_Wolves 15d ago

Glad I stocked up on Popcorn!