Raskin accus­es House GOP of ‘polit­i­cal oppor­tunism’ ahead of con­tempt vote

House Over­sight Com­mit­tee rank­ing mem­ber Jamie Raskin (D‑MD) accused House Repub­li­cans of mov­ing for­ward with a res­o­lu­tion to hold Attor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land in con­tempt of Con­gress out of “polit­i­cal oppor­tunism.”
The House is set to vote as soon as Wednes­day on the con­tempt charges, which would refer Gar­land for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion to the U.S. attor­ney for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia over alle­ga­tions he imped­ed Repub­li­cans’ impeach­ment inquiry by refus­ing access to audio record­ings of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s inter­view with for­mer spe­cial coun­sel Robert Hur. The Depart­ment of Jus­tice has already pub­lished the full tran­scripts of those inter­views, with Raskin argu­ing in an 18-page memo to Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mit­tee mem­bers on Tues­day that lis­ten­ing to the record­ings “will not change the con­tent of these inter­views.”
“Des­per­ate to blame some­one — any­one — for the utter fail­ure of this impeach­ment inquiry, Repub­li­cans have con­trived an alle­ga­tion that Attor­ney G …