Garland Denies Panel Access To Communications Between DOJ And DA Offices

(PatriotWise.com) — Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back on Republican lawmakers last week, denying that the Justice Department coordinated with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the prosecution of Donald Trump.

The attorney general appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last Tuesday, where he defended the integrity of the Justice Department and his tenure by telling the lawmakers seeking to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to release the audio of President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur that he would “not be intimidated.”

Garland refused Florida Republican Matt Gaetz’s request to release any communications the Justice Department had with District Attorney Bragg’s office, insisting that the DOJ did not control the DA’s office.

He dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” the allegations that the Justice Department was behind Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump, who was convicted on May 30 on all 34 felony charges.

Garland repeatedly defended the integrity of the Justice Department and told the Republicans on the committee that he and the DOJ would not be deterred from upholding the rule of law.

Garland described the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees’ resolutions to hold him in contempt of Congress as just the most recent in “a long line of attacks” by Republican lawmakers that have not and would not intimidate either him or the Department of Justice.

He vowed that the DOJ would continue to do its work “free from political influence” and insisted that the department would not “back down from defending our democracy.”

Republican lawmakers repeatedly accused the attorney general of weaponizing the Justice Department to target Donald Trump, a claim that Garland described as an “attack on the judicial process.”

With self-righteous indignation, the attorney general insisted that he had spent his career ensuring that the Justice Department upheld the rule of law and treated all cases alike. He insisted that the DOJ did not take into account political party, wealth, influence, or power in its investigations.