Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, testified before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and said he did not recall whether or not he spoke with the FBI about the Hunter Biden probe.
Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson posed a question to Garland, asking him whether he had any direct communication with the FBI’s headquarters about the Hunter Biden case. Garland claimed he didn’t remember if he did but added that the FBI is “part of the Department of Justice.”
Johnson apologized for his incredulity and asked if people were expected to believe he didn’t remember if he talked to anyone about the president’s son with the FBI.
“I don’t think I did,” Garland said emphatically. He reminded Johnson that when he testified before the Senate, he assured them that he would let Mr. Weiss continue in his role and would not obstruct his inquiry.
According to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, Garland was wrong to argue that disclosing such conversations would breach the confidentiality of those exchanges. Turley said Garland can definitively say whether such discussions took place. As Attorney General, Bill Barr affirmed topics discussed even in communications with the President, but he refused to provide specifics.
During the hearing, Ohio Republican and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan accused Garland of creating “two-tier justice.”
Jordan noted that there is widespread suspicion that the matter has been manipulated even though Hunter Biden was eventually indicted. Regarding the protections of the Bidens, Jordan said ‘the fix was in.” He reminded Garland that the Justice Department has been looking into Mr. Biden for the past four and a half years, and there are restrictions on how many people the FBI can talk to about it, and FBI agents must avoid calling the president “the big guy.”
Jordan detailed how Joe Biden could not be interviewed as part of the investigation and how information was leaked to Biden and the White House at every step. He also said that Weiss had been in charge of the probe the whole time and had given Congress three conflicting accounts in just 33 days.
Weiss gave contradictory claims in two letters to Congress on his power to bring charges against Hunter Biden. In the end, Weiss sided with Garland, who claimed that only Weiss could bring charges against Hunter Biden.
Gary Shapley, an IRS whistleblower, and his boss, Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, refute this claim and state that Weiss lacked the jurisdiction to file charges against Hunter Biden.
