WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — House Republicans plan to proceed with holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusal to release unredacted audio of an interview conducted as part of a probe into Joe Biden’s classified documents case.

House Judiciary Committee is set to convene May 16 to advance contempt charges. The resolution would go to the full House for a vote.

Led by Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, Republicans had ordered the department to release audio of special counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with Biden by early April. But the Justice Department submitted only some of the records, excluding the audio interview with the president.

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte, the department’s head of congressional affairs, said in the letter to Jordan and Comer the committees’ interest in the records may not be “in service of legitimate oversight or investigatory functions, but to serve political purposes that should have no role in the treatment of law enforcement files.”

Contempt charges would require majority support in committee, then support of the full House before a referral could be sent to U.S. Department of Justice.

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