House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) blasted Attorney General Merrick Garland on Sunday, claiming that he has done “more damage” to the “credibility” of the Justice Department than former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci has done to “public health.”
“Merrick Garland has done more damage to the credibility of the Department of Justice than Dr. Fauci has done to the credibility of public health,” Comer said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“I don’t think anybody in the United States believes Merrick Garland when he says the Department of Justice is not political, that the Department of Justice doesn’t treat Republicans differently than Democrats, that the Department of Justice did nothing wrong or inappropriate with respect to the Biden investigation,” he added.
House Republicans have long accused the Justice Department of slowing its criminal tax evasion investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, after two IRS whistleblowers testified before an oversight committee last year and alleged the president’s son had escaped true justice.
“The IRS has had whistleblowers come forward, and records from the Securities and Exchange Commission and various jurisdictions of the Department of Justice show that multiple agencies have conducted multiple investigations into Mr. Biden over the past decade,” Comer said Sunday, “and in each case, the Department of Justice instructed investigators to stop investigating once the investigation reached Joe Biden.”
House Republicans have struggled to make a case for corruption involving the Biden family and for implicating Hunter Biden in overseas business dealings while he was vice president.
Garland testified before the Judiciary Committee last week and took a more forceful stance in his criticism of Republican rhetoric, particularly regarding the district attorney’s investigation into former President Trump.
He also fielded questions and criticism from Republican lawmakers about his decision not to release audiotapes of Biden’s meetings with special counsel Robert Hur. Biden invoked executive privilege to block House Republicans from obtaining the tapes, but Garland argued that this was to protect the Justice Department’s ability to secure cooperation on other “high profile cases.”
Like Garland, Fauci came under fire from House Republicans earlier this month when he testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which is investigating the federal government’s response to COVID-19. Fauci was grilled about a range of conspiracy theories and unfounded claims about his actions regarding COVID-19, and Republicans tried to pin the blame on him for the suffering Americans have experienced during the pandemic.
Comer then alleged that Fauci lied to Congress about the administration’s early coronavirus response and invented the health secretary’s recommendation of six feet of social distancing.
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Justice for further comment.
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