Merrick Garland Says DOJ Hasn

Lawyer Normal Merrick Garland on Monday denied that the Justice Division has handled President Joe Biden extra leniently than former President Donald Trump for mishandling labeled paperwork.

Talking to a roundtable of his division’s Reproductive Activity Power, Garland mentioned the DOJ treats topics equally, based mostly on a “set of norms and practices.”

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“These imply, amongst different issues, that we don’t have completely different guidelines for Democrats or Republicans, completely different guidelines for the highly effective and the powerless, completely different guidelines for the wealthy or for the poor,” Garland mentioned. “We apply the details and the regulation in every case in a impartial, nonpartisan method. That’s what we at all times do, and that’s what we do within the issues that you simply’re referring to.”

Garland this month appointed Robert Hur as particular counsel to analyze labeled paperwork present in Biden’s former workplace in Washington and at his Delaware house.

The FBI on Friday searched Biden’s Wilmington residence for 13 hours and located six extra labeled paperwork relationship again to his time within the Senate and the vice presidency. Brokers additionally took handwritten notes by Biden from when he was vp.

A separate particular counsel is probing a trove of labeled paperwork discovered at Trump’s Florida resort after he left the White Home.

The 2 instances current vital variations. Biden has been cooperating with the DOJ and the Nationwide Archives, and voluntarily allowed the FBI into this house for an intensive search. Trump resisted turning over paperwork requested by the archives, prompting a court-approved search warrant and FBI search. The variety of paperwork present in Trump’s possession was far higher than in Biden’s.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and advised FBI brokers planted paperwork at his membership, evaluating the brokers to Nazi Germany’s secret police.

Requested if he has any regrets over how the division has dealt with the 2 instances, Garland replied that the DOJ’s position is to stay to the details and regulation, and to make selections “in a nonpartisan and impartial approach with out regard to who the themes are.”

“That’s what we’ve performed in every of those instances. And that’s what we’ll proceed to do,” he added.