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Merrick Garland testifies at House Judiciary; Biden to Announce Executive Action on Immigration. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 04, 2024 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:00]

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): -- yesterday suggesting that the FBI was somehow involved on January 6th. This is ludicrous, and you know it's ludicrous because witnesses are --

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Is there a unanimous consent request? Is there a --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a proper unanimous consent request.

NADLER: I have some unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an excerpt from the transcript of the committee's interview with Steve D'Antuono, the former leader of the FBI's Washington field office who clearly refutes characterizations that the FBI was involved in inciting violence on January 6th.

JORDAN: Without objection. The gentleman from --

NADLER: I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an excerpt from the special agent in charge of the FBI, Boston field office, in which he explains that conspiracies about the FBI causing the capital insurrection are false and concerning.

JORDAN: Without objection.

NADLER: And finally, I ask unanimous consent to enter an excerpt from FBI Director Wray's testimony before the committee -- before this committee last July, where he states, "I will say this notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6th was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and it's a disservice to our brave, hardworking, dedicated men --"

JORDAN: Without objection. Without objection. Gentleman on the floor is recognized for five minutes.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Attorney General, you've told us that it's a dangerous conspiracy theory to allege that the Department of Justice is communicating with these state and local prosecutions against Trump. You can clear it all up for us right now. Will the Department of Justice provide to the committee all documents, all correspondence between the department and Alvin Bragg's office and Fani Willis' office and Letitia James' office?

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The offices you're referring to are independent offices of state?

GAETZ: I get that. I get that. The question is whether or not you will provide all of your documents and correspondence? That's the question. I don't need a history lesson.

GARLAND: Well, I'm going to say again, we do not control those offices. They make their own decisions.

GAETZ: The question is whether you communicate with them, not whether you control them. Do you communicate with them and will you provide those communications?

GARLAND: You make a request, we'll refer it to our Office of Legislative Affairs. They --

GAETZ: But see, here's the thing.

GARLAND: -- will respond the --

GAETZ: You come in here and you lodge this attack that it's a conspiracy theory that there is coordinated lawfare against Trump. And then when we say, fine. Just give us the documents, give us the correspondence, and then if it's a conspiracy theory, that will be evident. But when you say, well, we'll take your request, and then we'll sort of work it through the DOJ's accommodation process, then you're actually advancing the very dangerous conspiracy theory that you're concerned about.

Now, you're -- you were a judge, once nominated the highest court in our country. When you were a judge, I'm just curious, did you ever make political donations to partisan candidates?

GARLAND: No.

GAETZ: No. And you didn't because that would create the potential appearance of impropriety.

GARLAND: I didn't because there's a federal rule barring federal judges from making contributions.

GAETZ: Right, but under that same theory of a tax on the judicial process, like, shouldn't someone be owed like a jury of their peers and a judge that's non-biased, rather than getting a judge from your political opponent's donor file?

GARLAND: I'm well aware that you're not asking a hypothetical. You're asking me to comment on a verdict, jury verdict, in another jurisdiction, which has to be respected. I won't comment on it. That case is still ongoing. The defendant has indicated --

GAETZ: Mr. Attorney General, I hadn't asked you about the verdict yet. We were getting there. I was talking about the judge. And so, let me ask you this question about your time as a judge. Was there ever a time when you were a judge when you had a family member who was personally profiting off of the notoriety of a case that was before your court? GARLAND: I'm going to say again, it's very clear you're asking me to comment on a case in another jury.

GAETZ: No, no, no. Hold on, hold on, Mr. Attorney General. Did you ever have a family member profit off of the notoriety of any case that you settled?

GARLAND: I'm going to say again, you're asking me --

GAETZ: Yes or no?

GARLAND: -- you're asking me to comment on a case currently --

GAETZ: Well, it seems you're connecting the dots, Mr. Attorney General. I'm just asking you as to a general principle, but you are aware the Judge Merchan's daughter was profiting off of this prosecution. You are aware that that creates the appearance of impropriety, you know the very reason there's a federal rule against judges giving donations is because it is the very attack on the judicial process that we're concerned about.

GARLAND: I'm sorry, I don't agree with anything you just said, but I'm not going to comment on it.

GAETZ: OK. So, you won't comment on it, Mr. Attorney General, but you had no problem dispatching Matthew Colangelo. Who's Matthew Colangelo?

GARLAND: That is false. I did not dispatch Matthew Colangelo. That's false.

GAETZ: Matthew Colangelo became the assistant attorney general at the very beginning of the Biden administration, without having been Senate confirmed, goes and gets this senior role at the DOJ, and then after -- I believe it's Gupta replaces Colangelo, Colangelo makes this remarkable downstream career journey from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and then pops up in Alvin Bragg's office to go get Trump. And you're saying that's just a career choice that was made that has nothing to do with the lawfare coordinated by the president.

GARLAND: I'm saying it's false. I did not dispatch Mr. Colangelo anywhere.

[10:35:00]

GAETZ: Well, do you know how he ended up there?

GARLAND: I assume he spoke -- he applied for a job there and got the job.

GAETZ: But see, you know what?

GARLAND: I can tell you I had nothing to do with it.

GAETZ: Well, you might not have had anything to do with it, but we've got this contemporaneous evidence in Mr. Pomerantz's book. So, Pomerantz writes this book, which I'm sure you're aware of, where he says, we put together the legal eagles to get Trump. We got all these folks together and we assembled them for that purpose. And so, when we on the Judiciary Committee think about attacks on the judicial process, our concern is that you -- the facts and the law aren't being followed, a target is acquired here, Trump, and then you assemble the legal talent from DOJ, Mr. Pomerantz, and you bring everybody in to get him.

GARLAND: I really, I --

GAETZ: And meanwhile, the judge is making money on it. The judge is making money on it -- or the judge's family is making money on it for stuff that you yourself wouldn't do. You know, no one's going to buy this. No one's going to believe it. It's going to create great disruption. And I am saddened by it because, like you, I have given my life to the law. I care deeply about the law. And I think that the lawfare we've seen against President Trump will do great damage well beyond our time in public service. I see my time's expired, I yield back.

JORDAN: Ranking member is recognized for five minutes.

NADLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Attorney General, do you want to respond to anything in Mr. Gaetz tirade?

GARLAND: I think everything he was talking about was a case in another jurisdiction, an independent prosecutor, Mr. Pomerantz worked for that independent prosecutor. I don't know Mr. Pomerantz. I don't know what's in his book, but these are decisions made in another office independent of the Justice Department.

NADLER: Thank you. Mr. Attorney General, last week, as we all know, a jury of his peers convicted former President Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business instruction is the first degree. The case was brought by the Manhattan D.A. So, it is a state case, not a federal case.

I shouldn't have to ask you this, Mr. Attorney General, but since the majority seems to be confused, can you please explain the difference between a state case and a federal case?

GARLAND: Yes. The Manhattan district attorney has jurisdiction over cases involving New York State law. A completely independent of the Justice Department, which has jurisdiction over cases involving federal law. We do not control the Manhattan district attorney. Manhattan district attorney does not report to us. The Manhattan district attorney makes its own decisions about cases that he wants to bring under his state law.

NADLER: Thank you. My Republican colleagues seem to believe that the Department of Justice is secretly coordinating the now successful prosecution of Former President Trump in New York. Is there any truth to this allegation? And what is your response to this allegation?

GARLAND: The case in New York is brought by the Manhattan district attorney independently on his own volition and on his own determination of what was -- what he believed was a violation of state law.

NADLER: Mr. Attorney General, two weeks ago this committee took the extraordinary step of holding you in contempt. I want to make some things clear for the record. Since 2022 when the chairman took over the committee, the Department of Justice has produced over 92,000 pages of documents and made 25 employees available for interviews. We've run the numbers. This is more than double the number of documents and exponentially more witnesses than the Trump administration's Department of Justice produced to this committee in four years.

And with respect to the actual audio recordings sought by the majority, the Department of Justice has produced full and complete transcripts of the conversations memorialized by these recordings. Is that correct?

GARLAND: It is.

NADLER: There's been an allegation that the transcripts might have been altered in some way. Is there any truth to that allegation?

GARLAND: There's no allegate -- truth to that. The senior career official in the department in a declaration he filed under oath stated that he had compared the audio to the transcript and that it is an accurate -- transcript is accurate with the exceptions of uhs and ahs and repetitions of words like I and and.

And he consulted with Mr. Hur, the special counsel, and with the FBI agents in the room who agreed that the -- who created the transcript and who agreed that it was an accurate transcript.

NADLER: Thank you. One more question. Mr. Attorney General, throughout the 118th Congress, Republicans have made bogus allegations claiming that the Justice Department has been weaponized. Most recently, there was an allegation that the FBI was authorized to, "kill the former president." What impact does this type of rhetoric have on the career prosecutors and law enforcement agents at the Department of Justice?

GARLAND: This is dangerous. It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.

[10:40:00]

As the FBI has explained, the document that's being discussed is our standard use of force protocol, which is a limitation on the use of force and which is routinely part of the package for search warrants and was part of the package for the search of President Biden's home as well.

NADLER: So, when President -- Former President Trump alleges that this was an assassination attempt against him, he is not telling the truth, either knowingly or as is often the case with him unknowingly.

GARLAND: I'm just saying that the allegation is not true. This is our standard use of force policy which limits the use of force that agents can use. It is used as routine matter in searches. That was a court authorized search and it accompanied that package as it routinely does.

NADLER: Thank you. So, in other words, when President -- Former President Trump --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. You've been listening there to Attorney General Merrick Garland defending his work as well as the other employees of the Department of Justice and pushing back on attacks against it. We're going to take a very, very quick break and be back on the other side

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

CAMEROTA: We have been monitoring this House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland. During the break, this congressman here, Tom McClintock, Republican from California, is asking about the terror threat level in the country. Let's listen.

REP. TOM MCCLINTOCK (R-CA): -- keeping it propped open indefinitely, but it is a lower number than your administration has tolerated so far. Yet, for the last three years, three and a half years, the president's maintained that he has no such authority. So, what's changed other than we're five months before the election?

GARLAND: And I have to refer you to the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for the border issues. I would say that the best way to protect the border was passed a bipartisan legislation that was proposed.

MCCLINTOCK: But you're responsible -- well, the bipartisan legislation would have forbidden future presidents from using that very authority --

JORDAN: Gentlemen's time --

MCCLINTOCK: -- until illegal entries reach 4,000 a day. So, don't be --

JORDAN: Gentlemen's time is expired. They've called votes on the floor. I think we'll try to do a couple more questions, then we'll break for about approximately 15 minutes, Mr. Attorney General, and then we'll be back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Thank you for your attendance here today, General Garland. I'm a little perplexed here. I'd like to ask you a few questions. They've raised the fact that this is the first time that there's been a prosecution of a president's gone after -- allegedly gone after his opponent.

Has there ever been another time in American history when a president was involved in an insurrection trying to overthrow the government of the United States of America other than January 6th? GARLAND: The answer is no, but I do not intend to comment on the

charges in the prosecution of the former president any more than I would comment on Mr. Hur's report. I just -- I'm am not going to comment on matters that are before courts.

COHEN: Thank you. It was said -- somebody quoted that one of the reasons Mr. -- it was -- there was no indictment of President Biden on records, classified records, was because he was considered a sympathetic character. In the Trump case, did anybody consider him a sympathetic character?

GARLAND: Again, I'm going to fall back on my respect for the court process, on the fact that cases are in --

COHEN: I understand.

GARLAND: -- judges and I'm just not going to -- I just can't comment.

COHEN: Mr. Jordan, in his opening comments, commented on the execution of the search warrant and said it was different in all these different ways. How many classified documents were found pursuant to that search warrant? And how many times has there been an attempt to get those classified documents and they've been refused to return?

GARLAND: So, I don't know the -- I don't have in my head the number. That's all on the public record, including the number of times that efforts were made to obtain through legal process, the documents.

COHEN: This whole hearing is about weaponization of the Justice Department and the suggestion that there was somehow your department was involved in the prosecution of Donald Trump in the State Court in New York. As far as weaponization of the Department goes, did the Justice Department indict Senator Menendez?

GARLAND: It's a matter of public record. Yes.

COHEN: And he's a Democrat, isn't he?

GARLAND: I'm assuming the answer is yes.

COHEN: And Henry Cuellar, the Justice Department indicted him. He's a Democrat too, isn't he?

GARLAND: Again, it's a matter of public record.

COHEN: So, you've prosecuted Democrats. And as we speak, Hunter Biden, who is a son of the president, is under trial in in Delaware. And so, you haven't weaponized the Justice Department in terms of hiding and protecting Democrats Menendez, Cuellar, and Hunter Biden.

GARLAND: The Justice Department follows the facts and the law. We prosecute like cases alike, and we make decisions about different cases in different ways.

[10:50:00] We do not allow the political party, or the ethnicity, or the religion, or the race, or the wealth, or the influence of someone we're investigating to make a difference in our charging decisions.

COHEN: I notice Mr. Gaetz who took you on first is not here now, and that's unfortunate because he is living testament to the fact and direct evidence that you have not weaponized the Justice Department. He was investigated for sex trafficking. And while many expected a prosecution, you chose not to prosecute this very active Republican. Is that true? You did not prosecute him?

GARLAND: I'm sorry. I'm not sure how much what is in the public record and what's not. So, I'm just not going to comment on that.

COHEN: Violent crime in urban areas is decreasing, and I thank you for that. Unfortunately, Memphis is not one of the cities where we've seen violent crime being reduced, but we're working on it. It was the second city to join the Violent Crime Initiative, which increases federal resources in specific communities. And I thank you for getting your department involved in trying to reduce murders and violent crime in our city -- my city.

Resources have been helpful based on my conversations with our U.S. attorney and our district attorney, and I want to thank you for that. Can you share some of the department's successes in tackling violent crime?

GARLAND: Well, yes, as I said in my opening, and I want to be clear, these are not the Justice Department's successes, these are the country's successes. Success in fighting violent crime relies on our partnership with state and local law enforcement, which really face violent crime the most directly. We operate in support of them and in our ability to bring technological tools and statutes to the fight that they may not have available.

COHEN: I'm about -- my time's almost up. I just want to mention one thing. I read yesterday that the chairman of the committee wants to reduce funding to the Justice Department and particularly certain areas, that would be defunding the Justice Department and defunding the opportunity to go after reducing violent crime. And I'm shocked. And I yield back the balance of my time.

JORDAN: Gentlemen -- excuse me, gentlemen, yields back. Mr. Attorney General, we're going to take a break now. The boats have been going on for a while on the floor. We will be back in, give or take, 15 minutes more or less. With that, the committee will stand in recess.

CAMEROTA: OK. You have been listening to a very feisty House Judiciary Committee there, questioning Attorney General Merrick Garland. He has been defending the accomplishments of the Justice Department on his watch along with the thousands of employees that he oversees. He has also been pushing back on some of the Republican attacks on the Justice Department there.

They are taking a very quick break. He will be back on the stand shortly after this. And we will be back after a very short break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:00]

CAMEROTA: President Biden is expected to issue an executive order in just a few hours, cracking down on illegal crossings at the southern border. This is an issue that ranks high with voters and has long been a political vulnerability for Biden.

But before we get to that, "Time" magazine today published a sweeping interview with the president. CNN's Arlette Saenz is at the White House. So, Arlette, the president, I understand, is making some news with his comments about Israel and the war in Gaza. What did he say?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Alysin, President Biden did not rule out the possibility that Israel has conduct -- committed war crimes as it's conducted its campaign to root out Hamas in Gaza. But at the same time, in this interview with "Time" magazine, he also pushed back on the International Criminal Court's attempts to potentially issue arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, Biden, in this interview, was asked point blank whether he believes Israel has committed war crimes. And he said, "The answer is it's uncertain and has been investigated by the Israelis themselves. The ICC is something that we don't, we don't recognize." He went on to add, "But one thing is certain, the people in Gaza, the Palestinians have suffered greatly, for lack of food, water, medicine, et cetera. And a lot of innocent people have been killed. But it is -- and a lot of it has to do not just with Israelis, but what Hamas is doing Israel as we speak. Hamas is intimidating that population."

This is noteworthy, of course, as -- though administration has increasingly expressed concern about the way Israel has conducted its war. And just days ago, President Biden presenting that potential proposal to put an end to the fighting and secure the release of hostages.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, Arlette, let's go back now to the executive order that the president, we understand, plans to sign. It cracks down on illegal immigration. The timing of this, of course, makes it hard to see it as anything but a political move. What does the White House say about it?

SAENZ: Well, the White House so far has not offered any specific details, but sources who have been briefed on the expected executive order say that President Biden is planning to announce this sweeping executive action that would effectively shut down the border for those migrants crossing illegally, trying to seek asylum when a certain daily limit of crossings is reached.

Now, those numbers that sources have told us, it is expected to have a daily limit of 2,500 apprehensions. To put that into perspective, just yesterday, there were about 3,500 daily encounters. So, this essentially could potentially go into effect right away.

[11:00:00]