justice department
justice department

Merrick Garland at center of Hunter Biden whistleblower claim

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed official whose sworn testimony to Congress is being challenged in a bombshell letter from an IRS whistleblower’s attorney alleging a cover-up in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation, The Post has learned.

Attorney Mark Lytle wrote Wednesday that the longtime IRS employee wants to provide information to congressional leaders to “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” — Garland — and also to detail “preferential treatment” in the criminal probe of the first son.

The whistleblower already made disclosures to the inspectors general of the Treasury and Justice departments.

However, due to a quirk of federal law, he needs congressional approval to more fully describe his allegations to his own lawyers, which he wants to do before testifying to lawmakers.

Garland has repeatedly claimed under oath that Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, a Trump administration holdover recommended in 2017 by the state’s Democratic senators, is able to criminally charge Hunter Biden without the permission of other Justice Department leaders, despite Republicans challenging the factual accuracy of that claim.

Garland in April 2022 told Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) that “there will not be interference of any political or improper kind” in the investigation of Hunter Biden led by Weiss.

“He is the supervisor of this investigation,” Garland said of Weiss, adding that “we put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee from the previous administration, who is the US attorney for the district of Delaware, and … you have me as the attorney general, who is committed to the independence of the Justice Department from any influence from the White House in criminal matters.”


Attorney General Merrick Garland
Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed official whose sworn testimony before Congress is being challenged in a bombshell letter from an IRS
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‘Mega legal services’ camp organised

Ensure schemes’ benefits reach poor and needy: Rijiju

ITANAGAR, 23 Apr: Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju asked the implementing agencies to ensure that the benefits of various developmental packages of the government reach the poor and the needy.

Rijiju said that the central government is providing numerous people-centric and development packages to the state government in all sectors. “But late submission of utilisation certificates due to various reasons is posing a stumbling block to granting additional fund by the central government,” the minister said.

Rijiju was addressing the people after inaugurating a ‘mega legal services camp’ and a ‘Pro Bono Club’ at the Jarbom Gamlin Law College (JGLC) in Jote on Sunday.

The minister said that the people, especially the targeted groups, should be made aware of the various initiatives taken by the government for their welfare. He said also that free legal services should be provided to people who cannot afford the fees.

He discussed with the law students the importance of pro bono culture in providing equal access to justice in the country.

Replying to a memorandum submitted by the college fraternity, pertaining to infrastructure development, boundary walls, and requirement of more land for the college, the minister assured to look into the needs “after proposals are submitted by the state government to the Centre.”

Law & justice adviser Kento Jini highlighted the initiatives of the government to empower the GB institutions, and exhorted the GBs to deliver justice without fear or favour.

Gauhati High Court judges Suman Shyam and Nani Tagia also spoke.

The camp was followed by a public rally, during which the minister urged the people, especially the youths, to take advantage of such camps.

The event was memorialised with laying of the foundation stone for a new court building of the JMFC first class

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Pence’s Ex-Chief of Staff and White House Lawyer Testified to Jan. 6 Grand Jury

Multiple news reports revealed Monday that two top aids to former Vice President Mike Pence recently were subpoenaed and appeared before the federal grand jury probing the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Marc Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, “was caught by an ABC News camera departing DC District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood,” the outlet reportedsharing a still from the footage and citing sources familiar with the matter.

While spokespeople for Short and the US attorney’s office declined to comment, sources also confirmed his appearance to short-pence-jan-6.html”The New York Times and department-questions-top-pence-aides-over-trump-bid-to-overturn-election-11658783628?st=ftbgmoyxg2ur50m&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink”The Wall Street Journal.

Journalists and others noted that Short is now the highest-ranking official from former President Donald Trump’s administration known to have cooperated with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.

“This is movement in the right direction. Because #JusticeMatterstweeted Glenn Kirschner, an MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst, about Short’s testimony, which reportedly lasted two to three hours.

Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said that “we don’t totally know what this means, but it’s clearly good news for accountability.”

In a series of tweets, Just Security‘s Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department special counsel, laid out the potential significance of Short cooperating with the probe.

“Most importantly, Marc Short has significant testimony he could give that implicates Trump. Also importantly, he can give testimony that significantly implicates Mark Meadows,” Goodman said, referencing the former president’s White House chief of staff.

Greg Jacob, Pence’s top White House attorney, also recently appeared before the grand jury under subpoena, according to the Journal.

The newspaper noted that the DOJ recently added prosecutors and resources to the probe and suggested

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Trump DOJ Coup Lawyer Jeff Clark Adds DC Bar Complaint To His CV

jeffrey clark Justice Department Makes Announcement On Opioid Settlement In Washington

(Photo by Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)

Last week, the DC bar filed a Petition Institute Formal Disciplinary Proceedings against former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark. This is hardly the most pressing concern for the onetime Kirkland & Ellis attorney, who woke up on June 22 to the FBI knocking at his door with a warrant to size his electronic devices. But the prospect of bar sanctions on top of the rest of his legal worries isn’t exactly a plus on the old resume.

Clark’s plot to weaponize the DOJ as part of Trump’s fraudulent electors scheme has been widely reported for over a year. But the January 6 Select Committee’s June 23 public hearing laid bare his conduct for the wider public, and in the least flattering light possible. In short, Clark, an environmental lawyer who was then-acting head of the Civil Division, cooked up a Proof of Concept letter making various false allegations about fraud in the swing states to provide the Republican-dominated legislatures a pretext to re-cast the states’ electors for Trump.

The letter claimed that the Department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” This was false — in fact, multiple US Attorneys on the ground in Georgia investigated the fraud claims and found them groundless. Clark also claimed that it was the position of the Department that state legislatures had the inherent constitutional authority to convene themselves to bless “alternate” slates of electors. This was in no wise the position of the DOJ, although it was certainly the position of Trump’s coup-curious campaign lawyer, John Eastman.

Perhaps most hilariously, the complaint alleged that the Justice Department found “troubling the current posture of a pending lawsuit in Fulton County” and the “litigation’s sluggish

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Readout of Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco’s Trip to Colorado | OPA

Deputy Attorney General (Deputy AG) Lisa O. Monaco traveled to Colorado this week to highlight the Justice Department’s mission to protect and defend the rule of law.

On Wednesday, the Deputy AG was in Aspen, Colorado, to speak at the Aspen Security Forum. Alongside Treasury Deputy Secretary Walley Adeyemo, she discussed the wide-ranging response by the Justice and Treasury Departments as part of the US government’s ongoing efforts to impose consequences on the Russian regime for its unprovoked aggression in Ukraine.

In particular, the Deputy AG highlighted the success of the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, and its work with partners across the US government and around the world to enforce the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed on Russia. She also described the department‘s resolve to expose the corruption that has benefited the Russian regime, saying:

“It is important, I think, to expose the corruption; to do everything we can to go after these ill-gotten gains — whether they’re in bank accounts here, whether they’re in the form of planes or yachts, you name it — and to expose this corruption to say that there’s no place that you can hide these ill-gotten gains — we’ll go to Fiji if we have to, to get [them] back.”

A video recording of the discussion, titled “Freezing, Seizing, and More: Behind the Sanctions on Russia,” is available here.

On Thursday, the Deputy AG was in Denver to visit the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado. There she met with US Attorney Cole Finegan and his leadership team, and received a series of briefings on cases from across the district. She also had an opportunity to hear from and talk with the men and women of the US Attorney’s Office

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Garland in Ukraine to talk war crimes prosecution

The United States, he added, “is sending an unmistakable message: There is no place to hide. We and our partners will pursue every avenue available to make sure that those who are responsible for these atrocities are held accountable.”

Garland also announced the launch of a War Crimes Accountability Team to be led by Eli Rosenbaum, whom the attorney general tapped to serve as counselor for war crimes accountability, garland-visits-ukraine-reaffirms-us-commitment-help-identify” class=” js-tealium-tracking ” data-tracking=”mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=”according to a Justice Department news release.

Rosenbaum is a more than three-decade department veteran who previously served as director of the Office of Special Investigations, helping identify and deport Nazi war criminals.

Hope Olds, the acting section chief of the department’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section, will aid Rosenbaum’s efforts, as will prosecutors Christina Giffin, Christian Levesque and Courtney Urschel, the department said.

With his visit Tuesday, Garland becomes the latest member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to make a trip to the war-torn country; Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled together to the capital of Kyiv in April. The Justice Department previously announced last week that Garland was traveling elsewhere in Europe for various meetings.

Garland’s visit comes after he was revealed in April that the Justice Department was contributing to international investigations into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, escalating US involvement in efforts to hold Russia legally accountable for atrocities committed during its invasion.

“This department has a long history of helping to hold accountable those who perpetrate war crimes,” Garland said at the time, invoking his predecessor Robert Jackson — a former attorney general in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration who went on to serve as the chief US prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

Garland has spoken publicly in the

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Merrick Garland’s former law professor says he thinks the attorney general will indict Trump over January 6

  • A Harvard Law professor said he thinks Trump will be indicted by the Justice Department.

  • Laurence Tribe is the former professor of US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

  • “He said he’d go to the top if that’s where the evidence points and that’s certainly where it’s pointing now,” Tribe said.

Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School who taught Attorney General Merrick Garland, believes his former student will indict former President Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection.

Tribe made the prediction during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer days after explosive testimony was delivered during the House Select Committee’s latest January 6 hearing.

Blitzer asked if, given the latest revelations and developments, Tribe thought the US Justice Department would indict Trump.

“Well, I wish I knew, but Merrick Garland is a friend and a former student of mine. He’s an honest man,” Tribe began. “He said he’d go to the top if that’s where the evidence points and that’s certainly where it’s pointing now.”

Tribe said some recent searches by federal agents, including the seizure of former Trump lawyer John Eastman’s phoneprovide “strong evidence that the Justice Department is not stopping with the foot soldiers. It’s going to the generals, and the biggest general of all of course is Donald Trump.”

“I do think the odds are he will be indicted,” Tribe said. After Blitzer pressed him on whether or not he thought Garland would bring the indictment against Trump, Tribe reiterated: “If I had to guess, that would be my guess.”

The January 6 committee has said it has enough evidence to ask the Justice Department to indict Trump.

Insider’s Camila DeChalus reported that the committee is likely gathering evidence to accuse Trump of charges that include conspiracy to defraud the government, obstructing an official proceeding,

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