Attorney General Merrick Garland was interrogated by the House Judiciary Committee today. He declined to answer many questions. He could not remember if he spoke with FBI personnel about the investigation of Hunter Biden. He did not know the number of confidential informants who entered th4e Capitol on January 6, 2021. He had to be forced to answer if Catholics are “violent extremists.” Fred Lucas shared seven takeaways from the hearing in his article in The Daily Signal.
1. ‘Traditional Catholics Are Violent
Extremists? Yes or No?’
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., brought up the
January memo out of the FBI field office in Richmond, Virginia, detailing plans
to spy on American Catholics. The leaked memo said, “radical traditionalist
Catholics” had the potential to become “racially or ethnically motivated
violent extremists.” …
Van Drew again asked: “Are they extremists
or not, Attorney General?”
Garland responded: “Everything in that
memo is appalling.”
[Notice how he could not answer a yes or
no question?]
2. ‘Don’t Recollect’ Personal Contact
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., asked about who
the attorney general has talked to regarding his department’s investigation of
Hunter Biden for failing to file income tax returns reflecting all his overseas
business dealings, including in China and Ukraine, and for drug-related gun
offenses. That probe began in 2018, during the Trump administration.
“Has anyone from the White House provided
direction at any time to you personally or to senior officials at the DOJ
regarding how the Hunter Biden investigation was to be carried out?” Johnson
asked.
Garland answered, “No.”
From there, the attorney general’s answer
became sketchier….
3. ‘Defunding the FBI’ Would Be ‘Catastrophic’
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., ranking member
of the Judiciary Committee, brought up the fact that some Republican lawmakers
had called for shutting down the FBI. They did so in protest of what they saw
as unequal treatment of Americans under the law, including the FBI raid on former
President Donald Trump’s Florida home in August 2022.
“What would be the impact on America of
defunding the FBI?” Nadler asked Garland.
The attorney general sounded alarms about
such a move.
“Defunding the FBI would leave the United
States naked to the maligned influence of the Chinese Communist Party, the
attacks by Iranians on American citizens, attempts to assassinate former
officials, up to Russian aggression, to North Korea cyberattacks, to violent
crime in the United States, which the FBI helps to fight against,” Garland said….
4. About Weiss: ‘What Changed?’
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan,
R-Ohio, noted that Weiss at one point wanted to bring charges against Hunter
Biden in the District of Columbia, but U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves
declined to cooperate….
Jordan also asked, “What changed?” in the
time between the July 10 letter to Graham in which Weiss said he didn’t ask to
be named a special counsel and Garland’s Aug. 11 announcement appointing Weiss
as special counsel.
“Several days before my announcement, Mr.
Weiss had asked to become special counsel,” Garland testified. “He explained
that he had reached the stage in his investigation where he thought that
appropriate.”
Jordan sarcastically referenced the launch
of the Hunter Biden investigation in 2018.
“After five years, what stage are we in?”
the Ohio Republican asked. “Are we in the beginning stage, the middle stage,
the end stage, the keep-hiding-the-ball stage?”
Garland responded: “This one I would go
back to the videotape, where I said I’m not permitted to discuss ongoing
investigations.”
Jordan retorted: “Isn’t that convenient.”
“Something changed in 31 to 32 days from
July 10 to Aug. 11,” Jordan added. “I think it’s two brave whistleblowers came
forward and a judge called BS on the plea deal….”
5. ‘People Don’t Pay Bribes to Not Get
Something’
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., suggested that
the Biden Justice Department’s decision to close the Trump administration’s
China Initiative, which since 2018 had investigated Chinese espionage in the
U.S., correlated with millions of dollars from Chinese sources going to the
Biden family.
Gaetz asked the attorney general: “What
was the China Initiative dissolved?”
Garland replied that China isn’t the only
source of espionage and other attacks.
“We face attacks from four nation-states: North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran, and we need to focus our attention on the broad range of these attacks,” Garland said.
[Question: Why is America doing
business with the four nation-states?]
Gaetz seemed to scoff.
“Are you saying that North Korea has the
same malign influence risk to the United States as the Chinese Communist Party?”
Gaetz asked the attorney general. “Because here’s what it looks like. It looks
like the Chinese gave all this money to the Bidens and then you guys came in
and got rid of the China Initiative….”
“It’s like you’re looking the other way on
purpose, because everybody knows this stuff is happening. But people don’t pay
bribes to not get something in return,” Gaetz told Garland.
“The China Initiative resulted in the
convictions of a Harvard professor, of someone at Monsanto,” the Florida
Republican said. “So we were working against the Chinese. They paid the Bidens.
Now you are sitting here telling me that North Korea is the big threat?”
6. ‘Agents and Assets’ at Capitol Riot? ‘Don’t
Know’
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., asked Garland
whether any confidential informants were involved in the Capitol riot on Jan.
6, 2021.
“How many agents or assets of the
government were present on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 and agitating in the crowd to go
into the Capitol, and how many went into the Capitol?” Massie asked. “Can you
answer that now?”
Garland replied: “I don’t know the answer
to that question.”
Massie then asked: “You don’t know how
many there were, or there were none?” Garland affirmed his lack of knowledge….
Massie said he didn’t believe the attorney
general.
“I think you may have just perjured
yourself [by saying] that you don’t know that there were any,” the Kentucky
Republican said. “Do you want to say that again, that you don’t know there were
any? …
On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted
Ray Epps, a man seen on video telling protesters to enter the Capitol before
the riot, on charges of disorderly or disruptive conduct on restricted grounds.
Some politicians and pundits have
questioned why Epps had not been charged earlier, and whether he was a
confidential informant….
Massie continued:
You are putting people away for 20 years
for merely filming [during the Capitol riot]. Some people weren’t even there
yet. You’ve got the guy on video who is saying, ‘Go into the Capitol.’ He’s
directing people to the Capitol before [Trump’s] speech ends. He’s at the site
of the first breach. You’ve got all the goods on him. And it’s an indictment
for a misdemeanor? The American public isn’t buying it.
7. ‘That Goes Right to the White House’
Jordan pressed Garland on why Justice
Department prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden allowed the statute of limitations
to expire for tax charges.
Such charges would have stretched back to
the younger Biden’s time on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company
that paid him $50,000 a month while his father was vice president.
As vice president, Biden oversaw the Obama
administration’s policy on Ukraine. “They made an intentional decision to say
we’re going to let the statute of limitations lapse,” Jordan told Garland. “I
want to know who decided that and why they did it.
Garland punted the answer to Weiss….
Jordan responded that everyone knows the
answer.
“Those tax years involved the president.
It’s one thing to have a gun charge in Delaware. That doesn’t involve the
president of the United States,” Jordan said. “But Burisma, oh my, that goes
right to the White House. We can’t have that.”
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