Attorney General
Merrick Garland
will face his first grilling in front of the 118th Congress this week, with an oversight hearing by the Democratic-led
Senate Judiciary Committee
, which will place the Biden DOJ official in the hot seat.
The committee, which is chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and whose ranking member is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), will
question
Garland on Wednesday at 10 a.m., during which the Biden attorney general is sure to be asked about the classified documents investigations into former
President Donald Trump
and
President Joe Biden
, the criminal investigation into
Hunter Biden
, the
China
threat, Garland’s controversial school board protests memo, special counsel
John Durham
, and more.
CATHOLICS & GOP DEMAND INVESTIGATION INTO WITHDRAWN FBI MEMO ON “RADICAL-TRADITIONALISTS”
Trump and Biden Classified Docs Sagas
The White House, the National Archives, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines have all
pointed to Garland’s appointment of special counsels
in the Trump and Biden classified documents sagas as
reasons for missing deadlines or deflecting questions
about Trump and Biden. The Biden administration has also cited the existence of special counsel investigations as a reason to
slow-walk information sharing
with
Republican congressional investigators
.
Garland’s decision to allow personal lawyers for Biden who didn’t have security clearances to
search for classified documents at Biden’s Delaware homes
has also been harshly criticized by Republicans.
The DOJ confirmed the special counsel justification for delays in info sharing, citing Garland’s late 2022 appointment of
special counsel Jack Smith
to handle Trump inquiries related to the Capitol riot and the Mar-a-Lago classified records sagas and the attorney general’s January 2023 selection of special counsel
Robert Hur
to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified records as a reason why the
DOJ was limiting the sharing of information on these matters
.
Smith, a decadeslong DOJ veteran prosecutor, had been, until late last year, a prosecutor at The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo. Smith has a
mixed track record of going after high-profile politicians
from both parties, and he also attempted to
involve the DOJ in IRS official Lois Lerner’s efforts to scrutinize conservative nonprofit groups
.
Garland has not faced significant questions about much of this yet.
Hunter Biden
Joe Biden, his campaign, and his allies
baselessly dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a Russian disinformation operation
in October 2020. Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, a cyber expert and former Secret Service agent,
conducted a forensic review
for the Washington Examiner and concluded with “100% certainty” that “the data contained on the hard drive is authentic.”
Whistleblowers said Timothy Thibault, the former FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office,
“ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting”
in October 2020, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.”
The
whistleblower disclosures made public
by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also alleged that FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease” in 2020.
Wray said
he found these whistleblower allegations “deeply troubling”
when asked about them in August. Grassley and other Republicans have pushed the DOJ for answers on the allegations, and Garland will almost certainly be questioned about it Wednesday.
Grassley has also previously demanded the Justice Department and FBI launch a full investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop, including the revelation unearthed on Hunter Biden’s laptop by the Washington Examiner that
now-President Biden apparently unwittingly financed his son’s participation in an escort ring tied to Russia
.
In early February 2021, Biden asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys for their resignations, with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as an exception, who was asked to
stay on as he investigates Hunter Biden
. The president’s son revealed he was under
federal investigation
for his taxes shortly after the 2020 election, and he is reportedly being scrutinized for possible money laundering, as well as for possible foreign lobbying violations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Dozens of Republicans have called upon Garland to
appoint a special counsel to investigate
Hunter Biden, and former Attorney General William Barr switched from opposing the appointment of a special counsel to supporting one. Garland
largely demurred
on the subject when grilled on it in April 2022 and is likely to be pressed on it again Wednesday.
China Initiative
Given recent revelations about a
Chinese surveillance balloon traversing the continental United States
and the possibility that
Beijing is considering providing Russia with lethal arms
for its invasion of Ukraine, Garland is likely to be grilled about the DOJ’s stance on China, especially given Garland’s shuttering of the DOJ’s Trump-era China Initiative.
The China Initiative was launched in 2018 but was shut down by the Biden DOJ in February 2022, sandwiched between the department
unveiling a domestic terrorism unit
the month prior and
launching a special task force to target Russian oligarchs
the month after.
Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for ending the China-focused initiative and are pushing for a new law that would revive it while seeking to rebrand it as a “CCP Initiative”
aimed squarely at the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party
.
Garland
defended the decision to shut down the China Initiative
in October 2022, insisting that “we are unrelenting in our efforts to prevent the government of China from economic espionage” and that “we have not in any way changed our focus on those kind of behaviors by China.”
School Board Protests
A since-withdrawn National School Boards Association letter in 2021 spurred Garland to direct the FBI and DOJ’s National Security Division to help police alleged threats against school board members, with Republicans arguing
the letter was the product of collusion between the Biden White House
and the national school boards group, which later renounced it.
Garland
revealed
in 2021 that DOJ and the White House communicated about the September 2021 NSBA letter just before he issued his October 2021
memo
, with the NSBA letter urging the DOJ to look into deploying the PATRIOT Act “in regards to domestic terrorism” against protesting parents. Garland’s memo said it would “discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”
Internal
emails
showed some NSBA board members objected to sending the letter to Biden, and the school boards group
withdrew
and apologized for the letter.
Garland
doubled down
on his memo during congressional testimony in 2021, arguing that NSBA’s follow-up apology “does not change the association’s concern about violence and threats of violence.”
The FBI and DOJ’s National Security Division
downplayed their roles in carrying out Garland’s order
in 2022.
John Durham
At the start of the Biden administration, Durham was asked to step down as the U.S. attorney from Connecticut but was
kept on as special counsel
to investigate the Trump-Russia investigation.
Durbin announced in January 2023 that the committee would
scrutinize Durham’s investigation
following a New York Times
story
critical of the special counsel’s inquiry.
Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann had been charged by Durham after allegedly concealing his two clients, Neustar chief technology officer Rodney Joffe and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, from FBI General Counsel James Baker when he pushed
debunked allegations of a secret line of communication
between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank during a September 2016 meeting.
But a jury found Sussmann
not guilty
of the false statement charge following a trial in the nation’s capital last year.
Durham also charged Russian analyst Igor Danchenko, the main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier, with
misleading about the sourcing
for dossier claims, including related to the baseless allegations of a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between then-candidate Trump and the Russians, which
the special counsel said is false
.
Danchenko was similarly
found not guilty last year
.
Durham has obtained just one guilty plea, from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who
admitted he falsified a document during the bureau’s flawed efforts
to renew surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
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Congress is debating the renewal of the DOJ’s FISA authorities, with a reauthorization deadline of December this year.
Republicans have called upon Garland
to allow Durham to complete his work
and have
asked the attorney general to make public
Durham’s full report, which is expected to be finished in the coming months.
“With respect to the report, I would like as much as possible to be made public,” Garland
testified
in 2021. He also vowed, “There will be no political or otherwise undue interference with the Durham investigation.”
