Attorney General Merrick Garland faces grilling TODAY by Republicans probing Hunter Biden’s ‘special treatment’ and DOJ’s ‘double standard’

Attorney General Merrick Garland is in the hot seat at the Capitol today as fiery Republicans finally get their chance to pound him with questions.

The House Judiciary Committee plans to examine how the DOJ became ‘politicized and weaponized’ under Garland’s leadership – particularly regarding the more lenient treatment the agency gave to Hunter Biden according to pitchers alert.

Chairman Jim Jordan wants to use the hearing to get to the bottom of the DOJ’s “uneven enforcement of the law” by comparing the investigations into Hunter Biden to those of former President Donald Trump.

“I think at the heart of all of this is the disparity of treatment, the unequal application of the law, the double standards. I think that’s the theme,” he told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Tuesday afternoon.

The GOP has become increasingly angry over the Justice Department’s alleged “special treatment” of Hunter Biden during its investigation into tax and gun crimes against the president’s son.

The hearing comes a week after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., opened an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s ties to his family’s “influence peddling scheme” and after that Hunter was charged with gun crimes by Special Counsel David Weiss.

Jordan said Republicans plan to demand answers from Garland over Weiss’ appointment to special counsel status last month.

Weiss is in charge of a more than five-year investigation into Hunter. In July, the prosecutor’s team reached a plea deal that allowed the president’s son to be freed from any prison time.

Republicans quickly called it a “sweetheart deal” designed to protect Joe.

However, the plea deal collapsed spectacularly in court in July, opening Hunter to new charges.

Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned the “diversion agreement” in Hunter’s plea deal – a clause that granted him full immunity for a wide range of other potential charges, including illegal foreign lobbying – which killed the deal.

And after IRS whistleblowers came forward and testified under oath that Hunter received “special treatment,” Garland was forced to promote Weiss to special counsel status in August.

IRS agents Joe Ziegler and Gary Shapley testified under oath to House Republicans that their investigation into the president’s son “supported felony and misdemeanor tax charges” that were ultimately not brought against Hunter due to political pressure.

Weiss tried to bring criminal charges against him in Washington, D.C., they said, but was blocked by the district’s top federal prosecutor, Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee.

Shapley also recently shared handwritten notes from an October 2022 meeting in which he quoted Weiss as saying he was “not the decision-making person” to accuse Hunter Biden of tax crimes, raising questions about possible misconduct. handling of the case by the DOJ.

Jordan takes issue with how slowly Weiss handled the five-year Hunter investigation compared to special counsel Jack Smith.

In contrast, Smith quickly indicted former President Donald Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents as well as his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump has maintained his innocence in both federal cases.

“I think we want to demonstrate that we have double standards,” the president continued.

Garland should point out that his agency ended up filing three new criminal charges against the president’s son, so there are no “double standards.”

He will also tout the agency’s integrity and reputation for upholding the rule of law.

Last week, Hunter was charged with three felonies after allegedly lying about his crack addiction when purchasing a gun in 2018 and faces up to 25 years in prison.

On Tuesday, an attorney for Hunter said he plans to plead not guilty to the federal gun charges.

When the attorney general last testified before Congress in April, he said he was committed to ensuring his office’s investigation into Hunter Biden was conducted without political interference.

Weiss is also expected to testify before his committee in October.

“The Justice Department said (Weiss) will come and testify publicly,” Jordan said Tuesday, adding, “we’ll see if he honors that.”

The president said Garland would likely receive some questions about Weiss’ nomination and whether the DOJ would allow him to testify.

“We will see if he honors the commitment made by the Department of Justice.” We want to speak to a number of witnesses before that October date,” adding that the committee has only spoken to two of the 11 witnesses requested in total.

“They basically backed up everything that Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler told us as whistleblowers who presented themselves as IRS agents who worked on the Hunter Biden case,” continued Jordan.

Other topics expected to be discussed at Wednesday’s hearing include the FBI’s alleged targeting of pro-life Catholics, the controversial school board memo and the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

House Republicans announced Tuesday that they will hold their first hearing next Thursday in the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden — and plan to subpoena the bank records of the president’s son Hunter and his brother James.

The GOP has accused Biden of corruption and abuse of power over his alleged ties to Hunter’s foreign business deals while he was vice president.

They hope the new records will shed more light on the Biden family’s finances and help with the next stage of the investigation.

The White House insists Republicans have no evidence to support their claims and has called the investigation a sham.