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Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Thursday June 13th, 2024. This is the

excerpt.

Today. Today House Republicans have voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt of Congress.

Plus Oklahoma Supreme Court dismisses a lawsuit from survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre,

and a Florida school board bans a book about book bans.

House Republicans voted yesterday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. It marked a dramatic escalation of the GOP's broader war against the Biden administration's Justice Department.

I spoke with USA Today Congress reporter Ken Tran for more.

Ken, thanks for making the time.

Thanks for having me.

So Ken, what did House Republicans decide here

around holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress?

So on Wednesday, House Republicans voted on the afternoon to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress

as retaliation against the Department of Justice for withholding the audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Herr.

House Republicans have been asking for the audio recordings for a while now but the DOJ has refused

saying that the Justice Department has already provided Republicans all that they need for any

investigative needs such as the transcripts for example.

And was anything surprising about the vote and how it came out?

There was a lot of tension leading up to the vote. There was a lot of

consternation about the moderate Republicans who were a little skeptical about picking

another fight with the Department of Justice since the party already has been taking aim at the US justice system for multiple reasons accusing it of being politicized and targeting conservatives.

...