The House Judiciary Committee will hold a vote later this week on whether to find President Joe Biden‘s ghostwriter in contempt of Congress, a source familiar confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
The committee is set to vote during a panel markup on Thursday on advancing the contempt resolution after Mark Zwonitzer failed to comply with a subpoena seeking access to records related to a book he worked on with the president that may have involved classified material. If approved, the measure would be brought to the House floor for a vote referring the matter to the Justice Department for prosecution.
“Zwonitzer continues to withhold all documents and materials in his possession that are responsive to the subpoena from the Committee,” the resolution states. “The materials requested from Zwonitzer are crucial for the Committee’s understanding of the manner and extent of President Biden’s mishandling and unlawful disclosure of classified materials, as well as Zwonitzer’s use, storage, and deletion of classified materials on his computer.”
The possible charges come after the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Zwonitzer in March for materials related to Biden’s 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad. The subpoena requested access to all communications, work contracts, recordings, and transcripts of interviews he had with Biden.
Lawmakers sought access to the materials after former special counsel Robert Hur found during a yearlong investigation that Biden had inappropriately disclosed classified information to Zwonitzer during the book-writing process.
Hur also found that after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him to investigate Biden’s handling of classified material, Zwonitzer attempted to delete audio recordings he had saved of interviews with Biden. The special counsel said the FBI was able to recover the recordings, however.
“Zwonitzer’s failure to fully comply with the Committee’s subpoena has hindered the Committee’s ability to adequately conduct oversight of Special Counsel Hur’s investigative findings, the Justice Department’s commitment to impartial justice, and the President’s retention and disclosure of classified materials,” the resolution states.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in the letter to Zwonitzer’s attorney Louis Freeman that Freeman had provided no materials the committee requested and that objections he had raised with Jordan’s subpoena were “unfounded.”
The Washington Examiner contacted Freeman for comment.
Republican lawmakers have targeted Biden’s handling of classified documents for months after the release of Hur’s report, which did not recommend criminal charges but found evidence the then-vice president willfully kept some materials due to “strong motivations” to write a book after leaving office.
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Since then, GOP investigators have sought to obtain audio recordings between Hur and Biden related to the special counsel’s investigation. House Republicans subpoenaed the recordings from Garland, who refused to hand over the audio tapes citing the release of the interview transcripts.
Republicans later voted to hold Garland in contempt, although the DOJ said it would not press charges against the attorney general.
Justice Reporter Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
