The White House of President Joe Biden is continuing to block the release of the "Hur" tapes, the Daily Caller reports. 

They are called the "Hur tapes," because they are a product of an investigation by special counsel Robert Hur into Biden. The tapes contain Hur's interviews with Biden.

The White House has vigorously opposed their release. By now, one would think that the White House would just let them go, considering all that has happened in recent months.

But, the Daily Caller reports that it appears as though the White House is going to continue blocking the release of the tapes for as long as it could.

The latest

It is Congress who has been trying to get access to the tapes, and it is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) that has been blocking that access.

The Daily Caller reveals an opinion that Assistant Attorney General Christopher Fonzone, on Dec. 20, 2024, sent to Garland.

Fonzone wrote that Congress "may not constitutionally use its inherent power of contempt to arrest or direct that daily fines of $10,000 be imposed" on him for refusing to release the tapes.

The opinion goes on to state:

To be sure, Congress may disagree with the President’s privilege assertion—it would not be the first time Congress objected to the Executive Branch’s withholding of information on executive privilege grounds. But what Congress cannot do is arrest, imprison, or impose burdensome financial sanctions on an official for carrying out the President’s direction not to disclose information over which the President asserted executive privilege.

This, in other words, is essentially Garland's legal defense for withholding the tapes from Congress. The question going forward is whether this defense will hold up.

Background

Hur's investigation into Biden regarded the president's alleged mishandling of classified materials. It followed the classified documents charges that had been brought against President-Elect Donald Trump.

Significantly, Hur did find that Biden likely violated the law. However, Hur decided not to recommend Biden for prosecution, and it is his justification for this that caught the attention of many.

Hur argued that Biden ought not to be prosecuted because a jury would not find him guilty. And, the reason it would not find him guilty, according to Hur, is that the jury would likely find Biden to be a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."

This, of course, only heightened rumors about Biden's mental and physical decline, which is why Congress started to attempt to get access to these tapes.

By now, it is well-known that the White House covered up Biden's condition, which begs the question why the DOJ continues to prevent the release of these tapes. It is unclear whether we will ever get the answer.