Garland Denies DOJ Partisanship in Contentious House Judiciary Hearing

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appearance at a House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday involved deceit, evasiveness, and numerous denials that the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has targeted Americans, including former President Donald Trump. Instead of admitting to the partisan activities that Americans know Garland and his bureaucratic subordinates are engaging in, the Democratic appointee chose to paint himself as a victim.

The mainstream narrative promoted by corporate media leading up to Tuesday’s House Judiciary hearing was that Garland would utilize the time to “rebut Republican attacks.”

The Wall Street Journal even suggested that Garland, known for leveraging his department’s massive powers against political adversaries of the Biden administration such as pro-lifers, parents, and election integrity advocates, is a “by-the-book, unbiased” prosecutor.

Garland eagerly embraced these absurd media portrayals from the start. In his opening remarks, the failed SCOTUS nominee claimed Republicans’ efforts to hold him in contempt of Congress for multiple power abuses, including not releasing audio of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden, only add to “a long line of attacks on the Justice Department’s work” and his attempt to uphold the rule of law.

He did not mention his lies to Congress and obfuscation of details in several critical cases. Instead, Garland implied that the House’s attempt to perform its funding and regulatory duties amounted to “threats to defund” the DOJ for partisan reasons.

“These repeated attacks on the Justice Department are unprecedented and unfounded,” Garland said. “These attacks have not, and they will not, influence our decision making.”

The same man who ignored death threats against the Supreme Court following its Dobbs v. Jackson ruling claimed DOJ employees suffer from “heinous threats of violence.” Compliance with congressional oversight as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, however, he suggested would “jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”

“I will not be intimidated. And the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy,” Garland concluded.

Crocodile Tears

Ranking Member Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., began the hearing by praising Garland’s tenure as attorney general as marked by “thoughtfulness and decency.” Republicans strongly disagreed.

Nearly every time Republicans pressed on key issues like Garland’s stifling of the release of Hur’s interview with Biden and Matthew Colangelo’s mysterious transfer from the DOJ to “jump start” the New York criminal case against Trump, Garland suggested their questions were “dangerous conspiracy theories” that “raise threats of violence” against his office.

The first evidence was when Garland asserted that the DOJ does not “control” local district attorneys like Alvin Bragg, yet stopped short of confirming “communications” with such prosecutors or cooperating with committee members seeking any alleged communications.

“You come in here and you lodge this attack that it’s a conspiracy theory that there is coordinated lawfare against Trump. And then when we say ‘Fine, just give us the documents, give us the correspondence. And then if it’s a conspiracy theory, that will be evident.’ But then you say, ‘Well, we’ll take your request, and then we’ll sort of work it through the DOJ’s accommodation process,’ then you’re actually advancing the ‘very dangerous conspiracy theory,’” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz noted.

Later in the hearing, Garland dismissed newly released evidence that the FBI was authorized to kill Trump during its raid on Mar-a-Lago as “false.” By doing so, he confirmed that his FBI agents were indeed authorized to potentially shoot at and even kill the former president who is seeking to unseat the Democrats’ nominee this fall.

“As the FBI has explained, the document that’s being discussed is our standard use of force protocol which is a limitation on the use of force which is routinely part of the package for search warrants and was part of the package for the search of President Biden’s home as well,” Garland said.

He also defended the FBI’s decision to revive its censorship efforts ahead of the 2024 election.

“I would hope everybody in this room would want to know if one of our adversaries is acting as if they are American citizens on social media,” Garland said.

At one point, Garland appeared to get emotional over “election threats” to poll workers.

“Our democracy can’t work if those people have fear, threats that are urged against them, or if there’s actual violence against them,” Garland said.

His tears did not continue when he was asked about victims of Biden’s border crisis such as Georgia resident Laken Riley or those young and old who have lost their livelihoods to political prosecutions led by his department.