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Here’s the latest from a combative hearing.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — a prime target for House Republicans seeking to push unproven claims that the Justice Department is protecting President Biden and his son Hunter Biden — is defending himself at a high-stakes, high-volume hearing on Wednesday.
Mr. Garland is appearing before the House Judiciary Committee for a routine oversight hearing that, in years past, would center on policy, crime, law enforcement initiatives and civil rights. These days, it is a forum for lawmakers to air their grievances and to bolster an impeachment inquiry against the president grounded, thus far, in inconclusive evidence.
“I am not the president’s lawyer,” Mr. Garland said. “I will add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.”
As Republicans peppered him with a series of rapid-fire assertions, Mr. Garland has been mostly circumspect and soft-spoken, often declining to respond other than citing what is already in the public record. This is Mr. Garland’s first appearance before the committee since the special counsel, Jack Smith, brought two criminal indictments against former President Donald J.
