Attorney-General denies political influence on prosecutions

Judiciary committee chairman Jim Jordan accuses US justice chief of helping to stall the investigation of Hunter Biden.

Merrick Garland tells the house judiciary committee the Justice Department applies the same laws to everyone. Picture: AFP

US Attorney- General Merrick Garland has denied Republican allegations he had protected Democrat President Joe Biden’s son Hunter while the Justice Department prosecutes former president Donald Trump.

House of Representatives judiciary committee chairman Jim Jordan overnight on Wednesday accused the US justice chief of helping to stall a long-running investigation of Hunter Biden, which Republicans claim, without evidence, could show the elder Biden improperly benefited financially from Hunter’s overseas business dealings.

Meanwhile, Mr Jordan alleged, Mr Garland was propelling the two federal prosecutions of Mr Trump, who is Joe Biden’s top Republican rival in next year’s presidential election.

“There’s one investigation protecting President Biden; there’s another one attacking president Trump,” Mr Jordan said. “The Justice Department has got both sides of the equation covered.” In a heated hearing, Mr Garland, who has appointed independent special counsels to handle both the Trump and Hunter Biden investigations, stiffly denied politics or the White House influences his decisions. And he denied any interference in the decision on whether to prosecute Hunter Biden, saying it was in the hands of special counsel David Weiss, who Mr Trump appointed to the Justice Department.

“We apply the same laws to everyone,” Mr Garland said. “Our job is not to take orders from the president, from congress, or from anyone else about who or what to criminally investigate.”

However, he added, one job of the Justice Department was protecting democratic institutions.

That included, he said, “holding accountable all those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” a reference to the prosecution of Mr Trump and hundreds of his supporters for the 2021 assault on congress. House Republicans opened an impeachment investigation of Joe Biden last week. They allege, with no evident proof, Mr Biden benefited directly from millions of dollars his son earned in business dealings in China, Ukraine and elsewhere while Mr Biden was vice-president and had oversight over relations with Kyiv. But the impeachment effort is seen as an attempt to counter the political damage from the two criminal prosecutions of Mr Trump led by special counsel Jack Smith.

AFP