Attorney General Merrick Garland refuted accusations hurled at him and the Department of Justice by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. Republicans on the committee tried to paint the DOJ as being weaponized against former president Donald Trump.
"I will not be intimidated," said Garland in the aforementioned remarks, confronting a series of "repeated attacks," along with conspiracy theories floated by Republicans concerning the Justice Department. Garland told GOP lawmakers that the Justice Department will not be shaken.
"We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy," said Garland in the statement.
"Certain members of this Committee and the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means of obtaining – for no legitimate purpose – sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations," Garland said at the opening of the hearing, CNN reported.
Tuesday's hearing will be the first time that the attorney general has appeared before Congress from the time that the former president was convicted by a jury in New York on 34 counts of falsification of documents. Aside from these, there are still three more cases that Trump needs to deal with.
The two cases about Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 elections and mishandling of classified docs were brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The other is in Georgia, a state case still related to actions during the 2020 election.
Republicans have called the string of cases that Trump is facing as "politically motivated." They also accuse President Joe Biden as the one responsible for the cases, stating that these are efforts to interfere with the November elections. They have already threatened defunding the two investigations by Smith.
Republicans have also wanted to put forward contempt proceedings against Garland after he refused to submit audio recordings of an interview of Biden with a second Special Counsel.
"It comes alongside threats to defund particular department investigations, most recently the Special Counsel's prosecution of the former President," Garland testified.
"It comes alongside 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."
