WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday rejected accusations by House Republicans that he had politicized the criminal justice system in a bid to stop Donald Trump from reclaiming the White House.
In defiant testimony, Garland told lawmakers he would not allow politics to interfere with the Justice Department’s independent criminal investigations, and he accused them of peddling conspiracy theories that could endanger federal law enforcement officers.
“I will not be intimidated,” Garland told lawmakers before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. “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.”
Tuesday marked the first time Garland has appeared before Congress since a Manhattan jury convicted Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump on 34 counts of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star before the 2016 election.
“Many Americans believe there is now a double standard in our justice system,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio said on Tuesday. “They believe that because there is.”
Garland blasted Republicans for threatening to defund Smith’s investigation, and also accused them of making “false claims that a jury verdict in a state trial, brought by a local district attorney, was somehow controlled by the Justice Department.”
“That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself,” he added.
Some Republicans on the committee nonetheless repeated their theory that the New York case was behind the scenes by the Justice Department.