During more than five hours of testimony before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a passionate defense of federal law enforcement officials and the Department of Justice.
“We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside interference. And we will not back down from defending our democracy,” Garland said there.
Republicans angry with the DOJ’s handling of the prosecution of the former president Donald Trump and a separate case of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter hammered him during the session.
Garland faced off against a committee whose main goal, under the leadership of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been to criticize DOJ operations from a partisan standpoint in the much awaited hearing.
Jordan is under more pressure to find evidence that would connect Biden to his son’s alleged misdeeds after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, authorized an impeachment investigation into Biden. Such evidence hasn’t surfaced yet, sadly.
Jordan was continually rebuffed by Garland, who also used his majority in the House to his advantage to demand papers from the DOJ regarding the Hunter Biden and Donald Trump cases.
Garland found it particularly offensive that certain DOJ officials were singled out for criticism in the media.
These officials included the U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who is in charge of prosecuting Hunter Biden on gun and tax-related allegations, and special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading a team that is accusing President Trump of 44 felonies in two different instances.
Weiss was just appointed as special counsel for the Hunter Biden cases by Garland. Ever since 2018, when Trump was president and Jeff Sessions served as his attorney general, Weiss has been looking into Hunter Biden.
Republicans tried to depict Garland as having chosen Weiss particularly because of how carefully and methodically his inquiry of President Biden’s son had progressed.
Smith has also come under fire from Trump and House Republicans, with Trump repeatedly accusing him of being “deranged” and of trying to “take away my right of speaking freely and openly” after the special counsel asked for a partial gag order on the former president.
In his opening remarks, Jordan specifically named the special prosecutor, referring to him as “Jack Smith, the guy who a few years ago was looking for ways to prosecute… victims of the weaponized government.”
At one point, Garland was questioned about Trump’s frequently and vigorously denied claim that Biden had given the front-runner for the Republican presidential candidate in 2024 instructions to launch a case against Trump.
In their given time, several Democrats on the committee attacked Jordan.
Jordan received a particularly scathing rebuke from Rep. Adam Schiff.
“The chairman would abuse the power of this committee by trying to interfere in the prosecution of Donald Trump, by trying to use the committee’s power of subpoena to compel criminal discovery,” said Schiff, a California Democrat who became a household name in 2019 when he led the first impeachment of Trump.
Schiff said Jordan was, “In effect, making the committee a kind of criminal defense firm for the former president.”
