AG Garland Faces Off with Congress As Tensions Rise

(WatchDogReport.org) – United States Attorney General Merrick Garland had an appearance at the Congress Judiciary Committee on June 4, where he pushed back against the contempt of Congress resolution against him. The panel voted to advance the legal process a couple of weeks ago, with Garland saying that the move didn’t have a “legitimate purpose.”

The attorney general told the committee during his testimony that he and the US Department of Justice weren’t going to be “intimidated” by the move and claimed that they would continue doing their jobs without being politically influenced. Garland added that he and the department won’t stop fighting and “defending” American democracy. He also told the panel that while he sees contempt as a “serious” legal move against him, he won’t “jeopardize” agents and prosecutors’ ability to get their jobs done in future probes.

Back in May, GOP Congressmen on the Oversight and Judiciary panels voted in favor of the contempt resolutions as they accused Garland of refusing to deliver audio from the probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of top-secret material. A couple of hours before the vote, the Department of Justice announced it was unable to comply with the House subpoena for an audio recording of an interview between the president and former special counsel Robert Hur. The department claimed the commander-in-chief had issued executive privilege over the recording.

The Department of Justice has been saying over the last few weeks that handing over the audio recordings of the interview between Hur and President Biden would have risked chilling future probes. The special counsel, who Garland appointed to lead the investigation, decided not to charge the commander-in-chief but criticized him for the way he handled classified records. He even questioned whether US prosecutors would’ve been able to make a jury convict President Biden, considering his memory and age. His decision sparked outrage among many Republicans, who claimed that the special counsel favored the Democratic leader.