WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 House Republicans clashed with Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday, accusing him and the Justice Department of the \u201cweaponization\u201d of the department\u2019s work in favor of President Joe Biden \u2018s son Hunter.
Garland\u2019s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee was his first in two years and came at an unprecedented moment in the department\u2019s history: He\u2019s overseeing two cases against Donald Trump, the first former president to face criminal charges, and another against the sitting president\u2019s son.
Republicans on the committee \u2014 led by chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio \u2014 set the tone with accusations that the Justice Department is favoring the Biden family while targeting his likely 2024 opponent, Trump.
\u201cThere\u2019s one investigation protecting President Biden. There\u2019s another one attacking President Trump,\u201d Jordan declared. \u201cThe Justice Department\u2019s got both sides of the equation covered.\u201d
Garland \u2014 carefully and deliberately \u2014 defended the country\u2019s largest law enforcement agency of more than 115,000 employees at a time when political and physical threats against agents and their families are on the rise.
\u201cOur job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate,\u201d the attorney general said. \u201cI am not the president\u2019s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress\u2019 prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.\u201d
Questioning in the Republicans\u2019 arsenal focused on allegations that the Justice Department interfered in the yearslong case into Hunter Biden and that the prosecutor in charge of that case did not have the full authority he needed to bring necessary charges.
Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana asked Garland whether he had talked with anyone at FBI headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation. The attorney general\u2019s response began with a long pause before he said: \u201cI don\u2019t recollect the answer to that question,\u201d later adding \u201cI don\u2019t believe that I did.\u201d
Garland then said repeatedly that he purposely kept the details of the investigation at arms length, to keep his promise not to interfere.
His testimony came just over a week after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., launched an impeachment inquiry into Garland\u2019s boss, President Biden, with a special focus on the Justice Department\u2019s handling of Hunter Biden\u2019s case.
The White House has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as baseless and has worked to focus the conversation on policy instead.
\u201cThese sideshows won\u2019t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country,\u201d Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement Wednesday.
Hunter Biden\u2019s legal team, on the other hand, has gone on the offensive against GOP critics, most recently filing suit against the Internal Revenue Service after two of its agents raised whistleblower claims to Congress about the handling of the investigation.
Republicans contend that the Justice Department \u2014 both under Trump and now Biden \u2014 has failed to fully probe the allegations against the younger Biden, ranging from his work on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma to his tax filings in California and Washington D.C.
An investigation into Hunter Biden had been run by the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, Trump appointee David Weiss, who Garland kept on to finish the probe and insulate it from claims of political interference. Garland granted Weiss special counsel status last month, giving him broad authority to investigate and report his findings.
Last week, Weiss used that new authority to indict Hunter Biden on federal firearms charges, putting the case on track toward a possible trial as the 2024 election looms.
When asked by Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., whether he had tried to figure out if Weiss was facing any hurdles in bringing charges against the president\u2019s son, Garland said he had purposely kept his distance to keep a promise not to interfere.
\u201cThe way to not interfere was to not investigate an investigation,\u201d Garland said.
One Republican during the more than five-hour hearing came to Garland\u2019s defense
Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a former Justice Department prosecutor, told Garland that he was in an impossible situation after inheriting an investigation into the president\u2019s son and would have been criticized no matter what.
\u201cDo you know what people would have said if you had asked for U.S. Attorney Weiss\u2019 resignation when you became attorney general?\u201d Buck asked Garland. \u201cThey would have said that you were obstructing the Hunter Biden investigation and you were firing a Republican appointee so that you could appoint a Democrat to slow walk this investigation.\u201d
He added, \u201cYou would have been criticized either way, whether you acted or did not act in that situation.\u201d
Weiss, since 2018, has overseen the day-to-day running of the probe, while another special counsel, Jack Smith, is in charge of the Trump investigation, though Garland retains final say on both as attorney general.
Garland said no one at the White House had given him or other senior officials at the Justice Department direction about the handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. Asked whether he had spoken with Weiss, Garland said he had followed his pledge not to interfere in the investigation but declined to say whether or how often he had spoken with the newly named special counsel, citing the ongoing investigation.
Democrats, for their part, sought to focus on other criminal-justice issues, including domestic terrorism, hate crimes and gun violence. Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the committee, decried what he called Republicans\u2019 focus on \u201clong discredited conspiracy theories\u201d about Hunter Biden and a laptop said to have belonged to him.
\u201cThat is their goal. They want to divide this country and make our government appear like it\u2019s broken,\u201d Nadler said.
Jordan, along with the Republican chairmen of the Oversight and Ways and Means committees, launched an investigation into Weiss\u2019 handling of the case, which was first opened in 2018, after two IRS agents claimed in congressional testimony in May that the Justice Department improperly interfered with their work.
Gary Shapley, a veteran IRS agent assigned to the case, testified to Congress that Weiss said in October 2022 that he was not the \u201cdeciding person whether charges are filed\u201d against Hunter Biden. That testimony has been disputed by two FBI agents also in that meeting who told lawmakers that they have no recollection of Weiss saying that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n