Garland Bristles When Confronted By Reporter: Was It ‘Appropriate’ To Slam Biden Memory In Special Counsel Report
Attorney General Merrick Garland bristled when a reporter repeatedly pressed him on whether it was “appropriate” for special counsel Robert Hur to slam President Joe Biden’s age and memory in a report the White House ripped as “gratuitous” and “inaccurate.”
Ever since Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of sensitive documents dropped, Biden and his allies have pushed back on the accuracy and motivation of Hur’s derogatory asides about the president, and Democrats did the same at a recent congressional hearing at which Hur testified.
AG Garland addressed reporters at a press conference to announce an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday and took questions after the announcement.
Garland defended the independence Biden has maintained with the DOJ. But when asked if Hur’s language was “appropriate” Garland bristled — at the “absurd” idea he would weigh in or “edit or redact or censor” Hur:
REPORTER: On the special Counsel Robert Hur’s report. You personally have come in for a lot of criticism, in particular from the White House, anonymous officials who say that you should have acted to keep him from characterizing the president’s memory the way he did in that report, that you should have stepped in. What’s your response to that?
AG MERRICK GARLAND: I haven’t, no one from the White House has said that to me.
When the president announced my nomination, he said, to me directly and then to the American public that he intended to restore the independence and the integrity of the Justice Department. And that he wanted me to serve as the lawyer for the American people, not the lawyer for the president.
I sincerely believe that that’s what he intended then, and I sincerely believe that that’s what he intends now.
REPORTER: But did you think that that was appropriate, the language that he used to characterize the president’s mental state?
AG MERRICK GARLAND: Look, they — I said from the very beginning that I would make public the report of the special — of all the special counsel appointed during a period of my service.
That is consistent with the regulation, which requires a special counsel to explain what the special counsel’s decisions are. It’s consistent with the precedents. The full disclosure of all special counsel reports in the entire 25 years in which the regulation has been in effect.
It’s consistent with the common practice during the previous period of the independent counsel statute.
The idea that an attorney general would edit or redact or censor the special counsel’s explanation for why the special counsel reached the decision that special counsel did? That’s absurd.
Watch above via Pool.
