Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) found himself in wholly unfamiliar territory on Wednesday when an anchor for Newsmax—of all places—pressed him to admit that the GOP push to release President Joe Biden’s so-called Hur tapes is “definitely political.”
Biggs, meanwhile, asserted that while there was a “political aspect” to demanding the tapes, it was really about finding out “who’s actually running the country.”
Back in February, Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to recommend charges against Biden over his handling of classified documents. Even though he claimed the president’s actions “present serious risks to national security,” Hur noted that one reason he wouldn’t charge Biden is the president’s portrayal as an “elderly man with a poor memory” could be sympathetic to a jury.
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Since the transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden was released, an apoplectic GOP has demanded the Justice Department release the audio, going so far as to threaten to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to hand them over. The president has since invoked executive privilege to block the release, while Garland told Republicans in a House hearing on Tuesday that he would “not be intimidated.”
During an appearance on Newsmax’s Wake Up America, Biggs discussed the Garland hearing and the pressure that he and his colleagues have placed on the attorney general to produce the recordings of the multi-hour interview. At one point, though, he seemed a bit taken aback when Rob Finnerty began to grill him on the GOP’s motivations to get the tapes.
“Can we admit that for Republicans, this is definitely political? ‘We want the tapes so we can find out if there’s something embarrassing for the president on there that can then be used against him over the next five months.’ Can we admit that?” Finnerty wondered.
“No, I don’t,” the Arizona lawmaker replied. “There is a political aspect to it, but it’s more than that.”
Adding that Biden “cannot actually form cognitive thought” and that he’s “a danger to the country and the entire world,” the Trump acolyte insisted that this went beyond partisan politics.
“That’s not just a political statement—that is a policy statement,” Biggs continued. “Who’s actually running the country? That leads us to ask, is this an oligarchical type of government right now, or is it the constitutional republic it’s intended to be?”
Finnerty refused to leave it there. He kept pressuring the MAGA congressman to concede that his clamoring for the interview recording was mostly just an effort to politically damage the president.
“But congressman, you would agree that it’s political, just in the sense that this is going to benefit Republicans,” the Newsmax host stated. “And let’s say you get this, these three-plus hours of audio recordings, and there’s something really embarrassing that Merrick Garland and his team cleaned up.”
Noting that Garland said in the hearing that “he hasn’t even listened to the tapes,” which left him “stunned,” Finnerty then asked Biggs what the GOP would do if they got a hold of the recording. “Let’s say there’s something embarrassing. You’re going to make that public, right?” Finnerty pressed.
“Well, absolutely,” Biggs confirmed. “Let’s face it, I work in a political environment. Everything you do has political ramifications. So I’m not going to dispute that. But what I will say is there are bigger implications than just the political ramifications as well.”
In a court filing last week, the DOJ defended its refusal to release the audio and said it fears that if made public, the tapes could be manipulated by AI. “The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files,” the filing stated. “If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed.”
