Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that he would not allow the Justice Department “to be used as a political weapon,” as he denounced “conspiracy theories and “dangerous falsehoods” targeting federal law enforcement, the AP reports. Garland, who spoke to an audience of U.S. attorneys gathered in Washington, defended his department’s integrity and impartiality, saying that norms protecting the department from political interference “are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.”
Garland’s comments come amid an onslaught of attacks from Republicans, who claim the Justice Department has been politically weaponized to go after former President Donald Trump. Trump was indicted in two separate criminal cases by special counsel Jack Smith, whom Garland brought in from outside the department to run the investigations. In response to Garland’s speech, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the criminal charges against the former president “phony,” and said Garland has done “tremendous damage to a once great institution.” Trump has vowed if returned to the White House in November to “completely overhaul” what he has described as the “corrupt Department of Injustice.” He has also threatened to jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, writing in a recent post on X that they will face ”long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.” Republicans have also falsely claimed that New York criminal case, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in May, was orchestrated by Biden and the Justice Department.
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