As we reported, Attorney General Merrick Garland is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The committee is looking into the politicization and weaponization of the DOJ under Garland pursuant to the committee’s oversight authority.
I think it’s safe to say that Garland was not having a good time and was not a great witness. Things did not go very well.
Garland claimed that no one he knew of had spoken to anyone in the White House about the Hunter Biden case.
Biden AG Merrick Garland: "No one that I know of has spoken to the White House about the Hunter Biden case — of course not!" pic.twitter.com/Jl33MKxqwu
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2023
Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) questioning made Garland look bad, and Jordan nailed him good.
Perhaps the most important thing that Jordan brought up was Garland’s past claim about U.S. Attorney David Weiss having complete authority to investigate and pursue actions against Hunter Biden before his recent appointment as Special Counsel. Jordan proved his claims weren’t true.
Jordan pointed out that Garland had previously testified in March. At that time, Garland told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that Weiss had “full authority” to pursue the Hunter Biden probe in jurisdictions other than Delaware if he needed to.
Chair @Jim_Jordan: "You said [David Weiss] had complete authority, but he'd already been turned down. He wanted to bring an action in D.C. and the US Attorney there said, 'No, you can't' — and then you go tell the U.S. Senate, under oath, that he has complete authority?!"
AG… pic.twitter.com/Dy1L16bcqE
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2023
As Jordan noted, Weiss wanted to bring an action in the District of Columbia, but that U.S. Attorney turned him down. So that meant David Weiss didn’t have full authority if he could be turned down when he wanted to pursue something.
Garland tripped all over himself, and his response to Jordan was incredible: “No one had the authority to turn him down — they could refuse to partner with him,” Garland said.
As Jordan pointed out, refusing to partner with him is turning him down, and Weiss did not have full authority. So, what Garland had previously testified was not true, and that may now come back to haunt him if Republicans want to pursue a possible action for perjury.
Garland also had some other hard-to-believe testimony. He claimed that he knew nothing about all the Biden-related shell companies that have been reported on.
Biden AG Merrick Garland claims he is unaware of the millions of dollars that moved through shell companies set up by Biden family associate Rob Walker and subsequently paid into various Biden-linked accounts pic.twitter.com/Rz5pvqQMdB
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2023
He claimed he didn’t know because he was trying not to interfere. But there’s not interfering, and then there’s completely ignoring the facts of the case that are widely reported in the media so he doesn’t have to talk about them or acknowledge them in testimony.
There’s likely to be more, but so far, this has not been going very well for the DOJ and Garland.
