Attorney General Merrick Garland will appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning and answer the issue. former President Donald Trump’s Claims that FBI agents were “fully willing to put me and my family at risk” during the search of Mar-a-Lago.
According to excerpts of his prepared testimony shared with Fox News, Garland will deny that the Justice Department was handling the hush-money case in New York against the former president, and he will also push back against the committee’s efforts to hold him in contempt, a measure that passed the committee but has not yet been brought up in the House.
Garland is expected to say in his testimony that, “some members of this committee and the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means to obtain sensitive law enforcement information without any legitimate purpose, which could harm the integrity of future investigations.”
A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement that the attorney general “will build on the important work the Department has accomplished during his tenure, including reducing murder rates, prosecuting hate crimes, and fighting international terrorism, but he will also vigorously crack down on false narratives about Department employees and their work.”
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Attorney General Merrick Garland will thwart efforts to charge him with contempt. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Last month, Trump claimed in a fundraising email that Biden’s DOJ authorized the FBI to hit him during a search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022, a claim he made in reference to an unsealed FBI document related to the search. Trump was not home when the FBI conducted the search.
Trump also wrote on Truth Social, “Wow! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, known as the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown the report that Joe Biden’s DOJ authorized the FBI to use deadly force in the illegal and unconstitutional raid of Mar-a-Lago.”
Trump’s legal team also filed an application with the court citing the DOJ’s authorization to use force.
But the use of force cited by Trump’s team in its court filing is standard language. Has been used by the DOJ for yearsAnd the same language was used when FBI agents searched President Biden’s home for classified documents.
Garland will say in his testimony that the effort to hold him in contempt “comes at a time when baseless and extremely dangerous falsehoods are being spread about the FBI’s law enforcement operations.”
Special counsel Jack Smith said Trump’s team had omitted the word “only” in a document filed in late May, which led Trump to allege the FBI was out to assassinate him.
“Although Trump included the warrant and the operations form as evidence in his motion, the operations form was misquoted in the motion because it omitted the key word ‘only’ before ‘when necessary,’ without an ellipsis indicating this omission,” Smith wrote. “The motion also omitted language clarifying that deadly force is only necessary ‘when the officer has a reasonable belief that the use of such force would pose a significant risk of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person.’”
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Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, where he was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
Last week, U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon Smith’s request denied to restrict Trump’s speech about law enforcement involved in the case after defense lawyers called it “unconstitutional censorship.” Cannon found that Smith’s prosecutors did not properly consult with Trump’s lawyers before filing the motion, a violation of court rules.
Smith and Garland said Trump’s statements Law enforcement In danger.
Garland will also testify against Republicans’ claims that the DOJ had any involvement in a hush-money case against Trump in New York, where the former president was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The New York case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, not the DOJ. It is a state case, which means Trump cannot pardon himself if he wins the presidential election.
The measure to hold Garland in contempt comes with “false claims that a jury verdict in a state trial brought by a local district attorney was somehow controlled by the Department of Justice,” Garland will say in his testimony. “That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself.”
Garland says the measure is “just the latest in a long series of attacks on the work of the Justice Department.”
“There have also been threats to defund special department investigations, most recently the special counsel’s prosecution of the former president,” Garland says.
Trump made false claims that the Justice Department had authorized the FBI to kill him during a 2022 search of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. (Getty Images)
He said this comes at a time when individual career agents and prosecutors “are being targeted simply for doing their jobs” and at a time “when we are seeing heinous threats of violence directed at career public servants of the Department of Justice.”
Garland says these “repeated attacks” on the Justice Department are “unprecedented and baseless” and that these attacks will not affect the Justice Department’s decision-making.
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Garland says, “I consider contempt a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”
He said, “I am not afraid. And the Justice Department is not afraid either. We will continue to do our job free from political influence. And we will not back down from protecting our democracy.”
