US President Joe Biden has blocked the release of audio recordings of his interviews as part of an investigation into his handling of classified files.
A letter from the justice department to Republicans in Congress said Biden had asserted executive privilege.
Republicans have demanded the release of the president’s interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
Mr. Hur’s explosive report was released in February and it called Mr. Biden’s age and memory into question.
He declined to pursue a criminal case against the president, but wrote in his report that Mr. Biden would likely be viewed as an “older man, with bad intentions and poor memory.”
That prompted a strong reaction from the president, who said: “I know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t need his recommendation.”
On Thursday, the Justice Department said in a letter to the chairmen of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees that the recordings would not be released.
It said executive privilege would apply, which is a legal doctrine that protects certain executive branch records from becoming public.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who heads the department, also criticized “a series of unprecedented and frankly baseless attacks” on the justice department from House Republicans.
Mr. Garland will likely be despised by Congress for this move.
He told Biden in a letter Wednesday that legal counsel had determined the tapes were “within the scope of executive privilege” — clearing the way for the White House to deny their release.
Mr. Garland noted that the president cooperated fully with the criminal investigation and voluntarily participated in a five-hour interview with Mr. Hur’s team.
Mr. Biden confirmed that he was blocking the release of the tapes in a separate letter from White House counsel to committee chairmen on Thursday morning.
“The lack of legitimate need for the recordings indicates your probable objective — to shred, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes,” it said.
Mr. Hur’s report was released after a year-long investigation into Mr. Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017.
It said the president could not recall details related to the investigation during his interview.
The special prosecutor added that Mr. Biden struggled to remember important milestones in his life, including his years as vice president and when his oldest son died.
Republicans claim the report highlights voters’ concerns about his age and mental health.
Kamala Harris, the vice president, said Mr Hur’s report was “clearly politically motivated”.
Mr Hur defended his report as “necessary, accurate and fair” in a congressional hearing a month after the report was released.
Since then, the Justice Department has provided full transcripts of the special counsel’s interviews as well as other related documents to House Republicans.
James Comer, Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the refusal to release the recording was “curious.”
“Why can’t the American people hear the actual sound of his response?” Mr. Comer wrote in a statement last month.
The judiciary and oversight committees will consider contempt resolutions against Mr. Garland later Thursday. If they move out of two committees, the issue will go to a vote before the full House.
Republicans currently control the House of Representatives by a single seat and it is unclear whether they have enough votes to hold Mr. Garland in contempt and suggest he could be prosecuted.
If Mr. Garland is held in contempt, he will join his predecessors Bill Barr of the Donald Trump administration and Eric Holder of the Barack Obama administration in facing that fate.
Neither man faces criminal charges from their own justice departments.
