[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 150 (Monday, September 19, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4813-S4814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Department of Justice

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, when Attorney General Garland went 
through the confirmation process for his current job as Attorney 
General of the United States, he made a solemn pledge to keep politics 
out of the Justice Department. I, for one, was encouraged by his 
statement, having seen the disastrous politicization of the Justice 
Department under former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta 
Lynch.
  Attorney General Garland said this. He said:

       I will never make a decision in the Department based on 
     politics or partisanship.

  I took him at his word. I hoped we wouldn't see a return to the days 
when people saw double standards play out in the Justice Department 
based on who happened to be in office, who happened to be investigated. 
But, clearly, under Attorney General Garland's leadership, the 
Department of Justice has pointed its arrows toward concerned parents, 
for example, who are exercising their First Amendment rights to

[[Page S4814]]

speak up about their children's education. Attorney General Garland has 
sued the State of Georgia and the State of Texas, for example, claiming 
that ballot integrity measures that are within the prerogative of the 
States to pass were somehow suppressing the public's right to vote.
  We are going to start voting in about 50 days from now. That is the 
main election date. In Texas, we will start voting a full 2 weeks 
before that date, where, without any reason whatsoever, you can show up 
and vote in person, 2 full weeks before the general election. Yet 
Attorney General Garland spins the false narrative that somehow the 
State of Texas is suppressing people's right to vote.
  And then Attorney General Garland I think shocked everybody by 
authorizing an unprecedented search warrant on a former President and a 
current political rival when less intrusive means and methods would 
have produced the same documents that they claimed to be after.
  Time and time again, the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland 
has taken aggressive actions that are viewed by the Biden 
administration as politically advantageous. For everybody else, though, 
it is a different story, that double standard. When Supreme Court 
Justices are receiving death threats, including the interdiction of a 
deranged man who was out to kill Justice Kavanaugh here in the Nation's 
Capital, the Attorney General did not respond by taking appropriate 
steps to prevent that violence. In fact, he fanned the flames. Instead 
of protecting the Justices, he chose to criticize them and encouraged 
what amounts to irresponsible conduct on the part of people on the 
left.
  And now I am concerned about the Department's double standard in the 
handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. The public reports are that 
the President's son has been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's 
Office for the District of Delaware for a long time now. There is a 
lot, of course, we don't know, but reported leaks and evidence seem to 
show that Hunter Biden may have committed various felonies, including 
tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign lobbying violations. Despite 
the severity of these concerns, recent news reports have painted an 
alarming picture of the Department of Justice's handling of this 
investigation: silencing whistleblowers, downplaying or discrediting 
inculpatory information, prohibiting the Department of Justice and FBI 
employees from communicating with Members of Congress. This does not 
look, sound, or smell like an impartial investigation guided only by 
the facts and the rule of law.
  Just across the street from here sits the Supreme Court of the United 
States. On the front of that Court is the inscription ``Equal Justice 
Under Law.'' There is no footnote. There is no asterisk. There is no 
exception for relatives of the President of the United States. Every 
American is entitled to fair and equal treatment and equal justice 
under the laws. The Attorney General must guarantee that Hunter Biden 
receives the same treatment as any other American who is under criminal 
investigation--not better, not worse, but the same.
  Today, 32 of my colleagues and I have sent a letter to Attorney 
General Garland urging him to provide special counsel authorities and 
protections to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is leading the 
investigation into Hunter Biden. This is a critical step that the 
Attorney General can and should take to restore faith in this 
investigation and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. So I hope 
he will honor our request, do what he pledged to do when he was 
confirmed, and keep politics out of this investigation and, in the 
process, restore public confidence in our Nation's most revered 
institutions.