american's questions will not be answered. all the millions of questions we have why justice is not served and tax dollars are pilfered all over the place, why the biden family enjoys a level of protection, none of that matters. always answered by an ongoing investigation so we will never learn the truth. i'm in a pessimistic mood. a nexus between what you were saying harris and the hunter situation. out of the doj says you prosecute the felony. a misdemeanor and felony available, you prosecute the felony. and to your point, why are not only the d.a.'s pursuing the felonies and states, but why not seeing it from the doj. >> a lot of questions, and i know our congressmen and women will have more for the attorney general. thanks to everyone for joining us. dvr the show. but for now, "america reports." >> sandra: fox news alert, attorney general merrick garland will resume his secretary before

the house judiciary committee on capitol hill. house republicans pressing merrick garland for answers on the hunter biden investigation as the attorney general repeatedly declined to discuss the details of the five-year case. >> under the rubric of ongoing investigation, take you back to the hearing as soon as it resuper, lance gooden on deck. he's going to join us to react to garland's testimony and the lingering questions that he has coming up. >> sandra: head to the other fox news alert, president biden's capitol hill and release policies having deadly consequences for border communities. all as officials warn of an overwhelming influx of migrants quickly making their way into america. today alone, our drones have captured up to 4,000 illegal crossings. those numbers seem to keep getting bigger, john. hello, welcome everyone, sandra smith in new york. >> john: you heard it right. 4,000 illegal crossings. i'm john roberts in washington

and this is "america reports." texas authorities revealing they have arrested an illegal immigrant from peru for murdering a 40-year-old texas man in the border town of eagle pass earlier this week. sources telling fox news he was captured and released just a few months ago and given a court date to appear in 2025. >> sandra: concern growing in mexico after one of the largest rail operators was forced to halt freight trains, shocking video showing thousands of migrants dangerously climbing aboard those fast moving cars. >> john: martha and eric on the simmering tensions between president biden and new york city mayor eric adams over the crisis. >> sandra: and bill melugin live from the southern border, a lot happening, bill. what's the latest from there? >> bill: sandra, it's been exactly two years since we saw thousands of haitians gather under the bridge in del rio,

texas. and now predominantly from venezuela under the bridge in eagle pass, texas, after we witnessed a massive illegal crossings. the drone video as we first started witnessing this taking place. enormous line of migrants crossing illegally, we were talking to them as they were crossing illegally directly into texas with little to no resistance. our producer talking to several of them as they came in, they said they arrived on a train in northern mexico this morning. they walked down to the border and then just got in the water and crossed illegally into texas. it has been a complete free for all out here in eagle pass this morning. we have not seen images like this since del rio two years ago when i was out there with the 15,000 haitians. border patrol sources telling us several thousand illegal immigrants have crossed in eagle pass this morning. take a look at this second piece of video shooting from the ground as the people started

streaming into the country, they are predominantly single adult men filing into the country, a lot of them waving to our cameras, chanting venezuela, you can hear a boat going by, a border patrol boat. the boats have had minimal impact. mexican military deployed on the mexican side of the river, that did not stop the mass illegal crossing from taking place. it was nonstop for two hours, guys. images you are looking at right now, this was not just 5 or 10 minutes, this went on for two hours straight, and border patrol does not have enough man power or busses to get them out of here quickly, so they are trying to get out of the texas heat and gather under the bridge once again. they arrived on a train, what they are telling us. take a look at the video from yesterday. we were airing this, a massive venezuelan migrants were riding the train to northern mexico, mexican government stopped it, they got a venezuelan flag on top of the train.

they started chanting let us through, let us continue, the train was temporarily stopped. evidently it got through, because we are seeing the results of what happened out here this morning. and there are even more migrants in southern mexico trying to make their way here. take a look at this last piece of video, this is right on the border with guatemala, southern mexico, masses of haitian migrants overwhelming a refugee center there, pushing, shoving, stampeding because they want expedited visas to get to the northern part of the country to cross into the united states. migrants were trampled, officials were trampled, and we are told two people were hospitalized as thousands of these haitian migrants were disruptive and physically forceful in wanting these visas to get to the u.s.-mexico border. back out here live, it's going to take border patrol a very long time to process these thousands of migrants and expect many of them are released into the united states because the u.s. and venezuela really don't have diplomatic relations, you

can't deport somebody is the home country is not willing to take them back. deja vu, i remember being in del rio with the haitians, and two years later, numbers have never been worse. thousands of mostly venezuelans gathering here, a free for all here in eagle pass this morning. back to you. >> hey, bill, it's john here. the pictures you are bringing us are nothing short of stunning and if the pace of illegal migration continues in the months of september as it did in august, we'll be on track to probably eclipse 2,400,000 illegal migrants in a year. that would be a new record. after title 42 came off, we saw the numbers go down. what has accounted for the increase. simply a change in the weather or something else? >> bill: absolutely nothing to do with the weather. we heard john kirby say oh, it's getting cooler out -- it's 100 something degrees, it's hot, brutally hot. what happened when title 42 dropped, the biden administration started making promises of more consequences,

they said with title 42 gone we are not just going to put you on a bus back to mexico and kick you back to mexico anymore, we are going to deport you and also going to have a presumption of being not eligible for five years. they are deporting a drop in the bucket compares to what comes across the river every day. migrants know if they getter here, they will be released into the country, they are willing to seek out border patrol and turn themselves in. we have heard the biden administration say do not come. if you cross illegally you are going to be removed. you need to cross at a port of entry and utilize these lawful pathways we have created. guys, the port of entry is directly above these migrants. the shadow you see, that's the bridge. that's the port of entry. that's the legal way to do it.

they are deciding to do it illegally. don't want to wait for hearings, or wait for this and that. and with the system as backlogged as it is, some court dates are stretching out into 2026, 2027. bottom line, the migrants are not buying the biden administration's threats of more consequences. we have had 45,000 migrant encounters at our border in the last five days alone. an average of almost 9,000 every day. when you hear new york city mayor eric adams saying things like we can't handle 10,000 per month, kind of puts it in perspective for you. getting 9,000 a day here at the southern border and new york city, unfortunately, for them, looks like they are going to have more people coming their way because this is just nonstop down here, guys. >> sandra: and you think about, bill, the things the mayor in new york has said about resources drying up, lacking the ability to handle this influx of migrants, we are talking about much smaller numbers in the border communities and states

are dealing with right now. but specific to the live pictures on the screen right now, underneath that bridge, mostly venezuelans, i mean, by our count right now, and we are looking at hundreds of people, i see men, women, children, were you describing the group here of these -- the mass illegal crossings that have been happening right there over the past couple hours. were you describing these people coming off the train or was that the tape that we had a moment ago screen right? >> bill: yes, these people came off the train. as they were streaming in under this bridge, we were interviewing some of them, telling us from venezuela, and they had just gotten off a train this morning, then me they walked about an hour to the border. the mexican border city across river from us. they arrived on a train and that kind of explains what we saw happen monday morning as well. we had a group of about 2,500 cross here in this exact same spot monday morning. they arrived on a train as well.

and the mexican military has been deployed on the other side of the river all morning long, and it's done absolutely nothing. the migrants don't care, they are not trying to arrest anybody or stop anything, it's really just a photo op to make it look like the mexican government is doing something. keep in mind, the mexican government can stop these trains, they don't have to issue humanitarian visas which allow them to travel throughout the country, they could stop this if they wanted to but they allow all these migrants to come right to our doorstep and they don't stop them when they do the mass illegal crossings. we have had two of these in three days in eagle pass, and a lot of activity in el paso as well. so the activity along the southern border is starting to explode. and remember, two weeks ago karine jean-pierre was up at the white house podium saying that their administration was "stopping the flow." they are not. she was referencing the june numbers being lower. that was three months ago. numbers have exploded since then. so, i'll let our viewers decide. i think the live pictures tell the story in itself.

but the flow has not stopped at the southern border, guys. >> thank you for your reporting from there. >> john: karine jean-pierre safe to say border not closed. president biden is still in new york city but yet to hold a meeting with mayor eric adams about the overwhelming migrant crisis facing the big apple. the president did, however, find time to discuss the matter with new york governor kathy hochul. eric is live in new york city. do we know why the president is not meeting with the mayor, eric? >> no, john, no reason given as we see the compelling live pictures. we were just talking about the impact mayor eric adams has said this migrant flow has had on new york city, with many more coming. as you say, the president has skipped a possible meeting with the mayor, but he did find time to meet with the governor. mr. biden remains in town today for the united nations general assembly session, and did sit down with his fellow democrat last night, new york governor kathy hochul and says yes, they

did discuss the city's migrant crisis. she treated "a very productive conversations with president biden regarding some specific requests for help with the migrant crisis. also commended him on his leadership at the u.n. today." mayor adams has been very critical about the toll the migrant influx is taking on his city. he says he does not see a lack of a presidential get together so far as a snub. >> we have been in constant communication with the white house staff and team to really lean into what new yorkers need and what migrants need. >> this controversy comes as there was a rowdy protest last night against a migrant shelter. we are seeing video in the borough of staten island, resulted in ten arrests and a police officer was reportedly injured. turns out a crowd of residents were trying to block a bus that was delivering more migrants to a former senior facility.

that facility turned into a migrant shelter. the folks who live there say they just don't want the migrants in their neighborhood. >> i live 150 feet away from this building. and i'm concerned, yes, i have a daughter, we have people in our community who have children, people walk up the block to the main bus stop here. we don't know who they are. >> about 10,000 migrants a month do come to the city and that is continuing. 60,000 remain in the city's care. mayor adams says that will cost taxpayers of new york about $12 billion over the next two years, and judging by this video, the live video under the bridge, 60,000 could soon mushroom to many more people. john. >> john: consider 45,000 in the last five days as bill melugin was reporting. they are going to go somewhere, eric, thank you. sandra. >> sandra: bring in martha maccallum, from "the story," we

continue to watch the live pictures, i think the viewers are trying to wrap their minds around what is happening here. as i mentioned earlier, the mayor in new york city, how big a problem here. imagine the border communities dealing with this as long as they have. here is the mayor earlier on the fox affiliate talking about how unfair what is happening in his city is to residents, listen. >> we are in constant communication with the white house. the goal is to get the items that we have identified and that includes decompression strategy at the border, receiving the funding that we deserve. this is unfair to new yorkers, and it's actually unfair to the migrants as well. >> he's singing the blues there, but it's been officials in new york who have said this is a sanctuary city, welcome all migrants. >> martha: not that line ago lining up at the busses to say welcome, give everyone a hug when they get off the bus. welcome to new york city. right? this is a joke from beginning to

end. we are talking about the mexican officials, they are just there to make sure that these people from venezuela don't stop in mexico, ok. they are allowing them to move through this process and listen to what bill melugin said on this, you know, he's an absolute expert reporter on this situation. he has covered it so closely for so long. you know, he's basically saying that they learned that post title 42 nothing changed. so, why shouldn't they come across? they come across, they are going to have medical care, they are going to have school for their children. >> sandra: busses pick them up. >> martha: exactly, what country in the world does this way. why isn't the president addressing this and you know, the gig is up. you have people, new yorkers outside the busses going no, don't come to my neighborhood. this is not a lack of

compassion, this is just common sense and people look at this border situation, it makes absolutely no sense and they can't figure out why the president of the united states won't address it in any way. he says nothing other than it's congress's problem. so, for other things, you have executive orders, emergency action that can take place at the executive level. why, under this bridge, there's another great irony. bill melugin says the bridge above them is the way in, right. and that's why you get the sort of like too cute by half answers from mayorkas and others, oh, the border is closed, ok. the border is not closed, i mean, every american knows that this is perfectly clear. but you know, why are we allowing these thousands of people to gather underneath this bridge? why are they allowed to come across the border when we know that 90% of them do not have legitimate asylum claims.

this is not compassionate, it's not compassionate to the individuals, it's not compassionate to americans, totally ineffective, chaotic governance that no other country in the world would allow. >> john: and as bill melugin was pointing out in del rio a couple years ago, haitians in a similar situation gathered under the bridge of the illegal border crossing there. in terms of new york city, martha, it seems they welcome the migrants until they don't anymore. but ken paxton has suggested that a lot more busses will soon be on the way to new york city. sandra mentioned the burden on border states a moment ago. i put together some numbers on that. take a look at this. year to date, fiscal year 23, texas has seen 978,182 illegal migrants, arizona 435,410, a little more than 232,000 in california. these -- with the exception of

california, these border state governors are saying we cannot absorb this number of people every year. they have got to go somewhere else. and since the biden administration was relocating many of these migrants under the cover of night we should add, they have said look, we can't rely on the federal government to disperse the folks, we have to jump in, too. yet unlike the federal government they are roundly criticized for it. >> martha: no state should have to bear this burden of the federal policy on its own. and it's just logical that if you declared yourself a sanctuary city that these people should be able to come to your city because that's the policy in those cities. but we see what's happening in new york city, it's untenable, not a sustainable situation. i think eric adams is obviously more clear-eyed on this than he was in the beginning but now sees it's not -- it's just an

untenable dangerous situation. you are going to -- you already have school children in new york city far behind in their learning process because of covid, now they have all of these additional children in their midst that are also, you know, going to be taught in this school system. so it's an absolute -- it's an absolutely chaotic situation that is not beneficial to the residents or to the immigrants who are crossing this border illegally and politically i think it's -- it's starting to wear very, very thin. one last thing, interesting poll in "the new york post" this morning, should people think the city is worse off than it's ever been, the lifestyle has degraded considerably, and yet biden still at least above the 50% mark in the approval rating. not blaming the democrats in charge yet, we'll see if that -- if that holds up. >> john: one clarification, lieutenant general dan patricks said more busses are on the way, not the attorney general, ken paxton. so, new york should be prepared.

more will be on the way. >> sandra: martha, thank you very much. we will keep our eye on the live pictures. meanwhile, back to washington, attorney general merrick garland has resumed his testimony before the house judiciary committee on the hill. most recently andy biggs has been questioning him about the double standard for the biden family. let's listen. >> there's no policy on this question, the strategy and tactics to be used to preserve evidence are left up to the investigators and offices on the ground. sometimes it can be a serious mis take to call up. sometimes not. >> and here once again, you don't know what happened in the hunter biden case, somebody else is doing it but be sure when the timing took place. that is one of the biggest odditis of your testimony today. yield back from the gentleman from colorado. >> the gentleman's time is

expired. chair recognizes the gentlelady from pennsylvania. >> thank you for your decades of service to our country, constitution and rule of law. thank you for putting up with us today. american people are watching. they know what's going on here. this is a gross misuse of your time, your team's time, and our time. shameful circus. it has a goal, the goal to spew lies and disinformation, ultimately to tear away at the confidence of our independent institutions in your case today our very important department of justice. it's the exact m.o. of a former president. tear away at the confidence of our independent institutions, whether it's our electoral system, department of justice, the judiciary, independent news media. the american people are watching this sham.

but it's not just a circus, it's dangerous, and you know that, and you have mentioned that. i believe these fictions and fantasies are dangerous. dangerous for you and the 115,000 public servants with whom you work. dangerous for national security. dangerous for community's security. dangerous for the rule of law and our constitution. all at the same time of a looming shutdown. the other side of the aisle cannot govern and so they have this hearing which was supposed to be oversight and use it as a big distraction because they are failing to govern. imagine if we go into a shutdown. what does that say to your members of your department? what does it say to our service members, u.s. troops who would be training, fighting, without pay. and without confidence in this country's governing ability. it's a great distraction. so let me pivot to something i care about and i know you and

your department cares about. it is recovery month, and for families like mine with a member in recovery, every month is recovery month, so i thank you for what you are doing on the fentanyl crisis, the overdose crisis, that has claimed 110,000 lives in a single 12-month period. 300 souls a day every day. souls who have died while we were in this hearing every day. what is the department doing to combat the trafficking, to combat the amount of fentanyl on the ground as dea has said, enough fentanyl on the ground right now to kill this entire population multiple times over. tell us about your important work in fentanyl. >> congresswoman, let me begin by saying i share your personal concern and grief over this. i have met with the families of

children, of teenagers, of elderly people who have become addicted to fentanyl and who have died from fentanyl. everything you are saying is correct. and it's a catastrophe for the country. so as a consequence, the justice department has poured its resources, particularly from dea, with fbi assistance as well, and with fugitive arrests by the marshal service and with gun tracing by the atf, into the entire process by which fentanyl reaches the united states. so, we have sanctioned the precursor companies in china. we have indicted some of them for their violations. arrested some as far off as in fiji and brought them back to the united states. we have traced this -- the precursors to mexico where they are made into the fentanyl

pills, fentanyl costs about $0.10 to make, it can be sold on the street in the united states between 10 and $30, you can see what the enormous profit motive is here. so we must stop the cartels themselves. i have, as i said, traveled to mexico twice in order to work with our counterparts in the military and law enforcement there. >> i thank you for all of that. i want to just pivot once and i want to do anything i can to partner with you on this issue. so that we stop losing people. i traveled recently with the foreign affairs committee to the hague, met with the top prosecutor and his able team, very complimentary of the department of justice and your work. can you tell us about your important role or america's important role in war crimes, especially in light of your powerful history. >> yes, i'm happy to. so i have traveled to ukraine twice and, to meet with the

prosecutor general there, and i'm going to meet with him again this week here, met with me several times here. the justice department is pursuing the war crimes from russia's unlawful and unjust invasion of ukraine. to help to investigate war crimes over which we have jurisdiction, to help the prosecutor general in ukraine investigate those prosecutions. i was i believe the first cabinet member ever to visit the hague, the international criminal court of justice to meet with the chief prosecutor, to talk about our cooperation and respect to the investigations that they are doing. i've assigned a justice department prosecutor to the investigatory body that's been set up in the hague for the crime of aggression. and she is there now working

with the icc and with europol and eurojust, and assigned prosecutor to the embassy in kyiv to work with our ambassador there and to work with the prosecutor general's office there. >> i thank you, mr. chairman, for allowing that answer to go on because it is critically important. america -- >> the time has expired. gentleman from wisconsin. >> do you support the consent decree put in the place in the city of minneapolis. consent decree that was put in place with the police department of minneapolis. >> put in place by the federal government, yes. yes. >> yes. do you support fewer cops on the street? >> do i support -- >> fewer cops on the street. >> no, i don't support fewer cops on the streets. >> that's what's happening as a

result of -- >> i don't think that's a consequence of the consent decree. minneapolis has been losing police officers for many years. >> do you support more crime. >> do i support more crime? >> yeah. >> no, i don't. >> there was a hearing in minnetonka, minnesota, a suburb of minneapolis this last week, they were just -- they are beside themselves with the amount of crime that continues in minneapolis since the riots of 2020. and i would point out to you that i had an officer in my district, i live right across the border in wisconsin, or that's where my district begins, a police officer was shot to death as a result of a weak on crime prosecutor in st. paul and minneapolis, minnesota. guy served four years for a violent crime. you think that that's a problem? >> officer was shot to death, that is not -- that is certainly not an appropriate sentence,

that's outrageous. let me be clear, we are doing everything we can to assist minneapolis, we have a very aggressive u.s. attorney, brought a number of cases -- >> let me continue. i have a real short period of time here. >> sorry. >> in regards to disrupting drug networks, why do you think there is so much fentanyl coming into the country? >> because it costs $0.10 to make and can be sold for $30. >> sheriff mark daniels from cochise, arizona sat where you are a few months ago, under oath said the reason a drastic increase in fentanyl coming into the country is because on january 20th of 2021, open borders policies were announced by president biden. have you expressed concern about those open borders policies that have led to this rapid increase in the amount of fentanyl coming into our country? >> i can't associate myself with the conclusion reached by the

sheriff, although i can certainly commiserate with the -- >> so the sheriff is incorrect? >> look, that cartels in mexico are bringing -- causing this drug to be transmitted into the united states and we were doing -- >> terrific. >> everything we can to eliminate that incentive. >> you are not going to do it doing that. mr. chairman, just so we are real clear here, this is the same answer we received from secretary mayorkas a couple months ago when he was in denial about a sheriff who lives at one of the most reputable sheriff's in the united states of america sitting down there on that southern border, he sees it every day. he saw it working in 2020 because he told me when i was down there, and now he says it is not working, and it started january 20th of 2021. you can pretend that you are dealing with fentanyl, you're not. because the borders are wide open. you believe -- shift to combatting gun violence.

you believe that a prohibited person that acquires a gun illegally, and disposes of it in a dumpster where a criminal or an innocent child could gain access to it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? >> this is no longer hypothetical question, you are referring to a specific case, which is now in judicial determination before a court of law. it's not appropriate for me to comment on that case. >> so for the record, mr. chairman, let's understand that the same prosecuting attorney who is now the special counsel gave a sweetheart deal to that person and yes, you are correct. we are referring to the president's son. he got a sweetheart deal and the judge was smart enough to smell a rat when she saw it and she said you guys go back to the drawing board. that same special counsel is in charge of this investigation, isn't that correct, mr.

chairman? absolutely. i'm going to close quickly with this. there is a world naked bike ride in madison, wisconsin just a couple months ago and i sent you a letter two months ago asking if you had a problem with that because it exposed a 10-year-old girl by the race organizer, the bike organizers pedalling around madison, wisconsin naked. do you think that's a problem? and why did you not answer our letter from two months ago? >> i'm sorry, i have to get, ask the office of legislative affairs to get back to you about this. >> does it typically take two months to be able to answer questions like this? >> sounds like you are asking a question about state and local law enforcement. we get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters. i'll ask the office of legislative affairs where that letter is. >> state and local law enforcement would not act, we

were hoping you would. it's obvious you are not. i yield. >> chairman yields back. gentlewoman from north carolina is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. attorney general for joining us and your patience with this questioning. i'm honored to represent a diverse community in north carolina. wake county has worked to welcome people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions. the growth and success of my district and the research triangle park depends on our commitment to celebrating the many cultures that contribute to our community. unfortunately, over the past few years, these very communities that have contributed so much to my state and my district have found themselves under attack. jewish leaders in my district have received threats to themselves and their synagogues as recently as last month. hbcus across our state have

locked down in response to bomb threats. asian americans in north carolina and throughout the country have found themselves facing slurs and threats, spurred in large part by the racialized language about the covid-19 pandemic. the southern poverty law sentence reported in late 2020 that the number of white nationalist groups grew 55% between 2017 and 2019. noting that the rise in hate based attacks coincides with the growth of the white nationalist movement and anti-defamation league relatedly found white supremacist propaganda incidents occurred over 14 times per day on average in 2020, with a total of 5,125 reported cases, nearly twice the number of cases reported in 2019 and the highest

number the adl has ever recorded. this dangerous trend has continued in the last few years and has recently included as active clubs have been increasing in their number and prominence. these active clubs started popping up in late 2020, and are a network of white nationalist groups that sees themselves as fighters in training for an ongoing war against a system they claim is deliberately plotting against the white race. as attorney general, i am deeply interested and concerned about the rise of these clubs, threats of violence, and actual violence, and wanted to know if you are familiar with these activities and what your department is doing to counteract them. >> i'm not familiar with the specifics of those clubs, and i will certainly look into what the department is doing in that

respect. very soon after i came into the department i saw a spike in hate crime threats that were being made and actual acts of violence. i directed the department to develop a strategy for responding to that. 30 days later, that was pretty much coincident with congress's passage of the covid no hate act and we have now fulfilled, i think, all of the obligations under that act. we have task forces set up to investigate and prosecute both as hate crimes and where they satisfy the requirements as domestic violence extremism or domestic terrorism. we have brought dozens of cases against people who have made these threats as well as particular those who have attempted to carry them out.

and as you know, we have prosecution pending in buffalo with respect to the horrendous killing of black americans in the tops grocery store by an avowed white supremacist. >> thank you very much, and thank you for your efforts in this regard. on a different subject with my last 45 seconds, north carolina also saw the impact of cyber crimes with the colonial pipeline, and i would like to know how your office is counteracting any cyber attacks and dealing with people who perpetrate them. >> yeah, so we are vigilant to the risk of these kind of cyber attacks, in that case these were criminal gangs affiliated in russia, resident in russia. fortunately we had available intelligence from section 702, which we were discussing a little bit earlier today.

i have to say that's one of the principal sources of the ability to fight cyber attacks, whether they are criminal or whether they are launched by a nation state. whether they are attempting to get ransomware and ransom, whether they are simply trying, or also simply trying to get the information or whether they are trying to prevent our computers from working at all. the justice department has established a cyber task force for this purpose, a ransomware task force and we are recently working on cryptocurrency in exactly the same way. >> time of the gentlelady has expired. >> thank you, i yield back. >> we have votes and then we have majority conference, the gentleman from colorado is recognized. >> i thank the chairman. mr. attorney general welcome and my friend and colleague from colorado outlined your

biography, i thought very well. but he left out two points that i would like to mention. one is not only did you lead the prosecution of the oklahoma city bombing case, but in that case the death penalty was asked for and actually received and timothy mcveigh was executed. not exactly a democrat priority to seek the death penalty in cases but did so because of the rule of law, facts and law demanded you do so and you followed the facts and the law in that situation. the other issue i wanted to, or example i wanted to point out, it's my understanding that in your conference room you have a portrait of elliott richardson, and the reason you have a portrait of elliott richardson is because he demanded the department of justice stay independent from the nixon administration. he had the backbone to stand up to the president of the united states and make sure that the

department of justice would not become the government's lawyer. you put that portrait there soon after you became attorney general because it was a signal, a signal to the world that you wanted to be known in the same way that others that had come before you were known. and frankly, one of the reasons i respect attorney general barr so much is because after january 6th, he made the very difficult decision to walk into the president's office and tell the president the election was not stolen, we have looked at this, and for that reason he resigned before january 20th when power was turned over. but mr. attorney general, you are unable to answer some questions here, but i'll answer them for you. you know what people would have said if you had asked for u.s. attorney weiss's resignation when you became attorney general? i'm sorry, u.s. attorney weiss's resignation, they would have said that you were obstructing the hunter biden investigation.

that you were firing a republican appointee so that you could appoint a democrat to slow-walk this investigation and lose the leadership of that investigation. if you had made the same decision a year later, because you were frustrated that the prosecution was not moving fast enough, they would have again said you were interfering with the prosecution. if you, when u.s. attorney weiss asked to become special counsel, if you had made the decision then to appoint someone else to special counsel, people would have criticized you because you would have been taking someone out of the investigation that knew the facts, that could lead the investigation, and put someone in who would have had to come up to speed on the investigation and wouldn't have allowed major decisions to be made until they came up to speed. so, in three different opportunities where you could have acted, you would have been criticized either way whether you acted or did not act in that situation. far from slow-walking, really

once the trump administration decided that that was the person leading the investigation, your hands were tied. you did not have the opportunity to make a decision on the leadership of that investigation. but speaking of slow-walking, i appreciate your reference in your opening remarks, your written opening remarks to the department of justice strongly supports efforts by congress to promote competition in digital markets by passing legislation to prohibit certain anti-competitive practices by dominant online platforms. you can't say who they are but i can. apple, amazon, facebook and google, are monopolies and have been harming this country and harming competition in that particular market for years. and congress for five years has been investigating and offering bills on that subject. they spent $250 million according to reports in the last congress to defeat those bills. and now we do nothing in this

congress to try to deal with that very serious issue. in fact there are efforts i'm old in the senate, and i use the word effort and senate very carefully in the same sentence, but efforts in the senate s2321 to take $50 million in funding for the department of justice antitrust division and it would be an 18% cut, and to move that money to the general department of justice operations fund to try to further cripple the effort that are going on in court. the state attorney generals, and the antitrust division and federal trade commission, are doing a great job jointly in trying to combat the scourge of these monopolies. my question to you is will you make sure that the antitrust division is properly funded so it can continue this very serious effort at stopping these

monopolies from harming our children, harming competition, and further strengthening china's position in this area. >> yes, i absolutely will and one of the first things i did and the first budget opportunity we had was to ask for more money for the antitrust division than had been given in quite a long time and to ask for the fees that are paid for purposes of merger analysis be given to the antitrust division directly, rather than to go into a general fund. >> thank you, i yield back. >> i would point out for the record attorney general barr left the trump administration on december 23, 2020, not between january 6th and january 20, 2021. with that i recognize the gentlelady -- >> mr. chairman, i'm sorry, since you mentioned monopoly, also enter into the record this article about the mastercard, visa duopoly, and insert it into the record. >> accepted.

gentlelady from missouri is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for being here attorney general garland. make clear what it means to promote equal justice for every person in this country. attorney general garland, you often speak about your commitment to supporting civil rights and the rule of law. but i have concerns about whether the department under your leadership is doing the absolute most it possibly can to advance these goals. in the limited time i have, i want to share my concerns about specific issues with you directly, and to make clear the steps that i believe that the department needs to take. l first off, as this hearing has shown, a small number of the department's cases get an outside level of attention and politics. but the reality is, you preside over most of the federal system of mass incarceration. and every day in courtrooms around the country, including st. louis, prosecutors who ultimately report to you are

continuing to disproportionately prosecute disproportionately black and brown people for disproportionately low level immigration and narcotics and firearm offenses. and under your watch, the federal incarceration rate has increased for the first time in nearly a decade. meanwhile, corporate crime enforcement is lower than it was during the trump administration. the department needs to rethink its entire approach to prosecution but let me also say i thank you for what you are doing with the insurrectionists. and i urge you to take specific steps towards ending mandatory minimums and waivers and actively supporting alternatives to in car ration, funding public defenders, use of clemency power and reporting disparities in prosecutions. and bureau of prisons, director peter is not doing enough to

address the rampant issues of abuse and mismanagement at the bureau, affects the staff and people in custody. it's shameful that solitary confinement has increased during the biden administration despite the president claiming he supports ending it. we need to see more from the department across the board on bureau of prisons oversight and you should implement the president's commitment to end the practice of solitaire confinement once and for all. and disheartened the department has continued to pursue the death penalty despite the president's pledge to end it. i urge the department to reverse course, including by dismantling the federal death chamber in indiana, and sentences on federal death row and waiting to see meaningful progress

announced in june 2022 and the title 6 and safe streets act. i'm taking my time. and i would like an update when the department will respond to the oversight committee democrats' letter from june 2021 about the memo issued by the trump administration office of legal counsel concerning the equal rights amendment. that deeply flawed memo is preventing the archivists of the united states from publishing the equal rights amendment as the 28th amendment. i know olc issued a short clarification after you took office but the wording was not clear of the trump era memo. i urge you to withdraw the trump olc memo, baselessly obstructing constitutional gender equality for all. finally, i cannot overstate how shocked i am by the targeting of protestors who opposed the atlanta public training center or cop city and i urge the

department to investigate these obvious violation of civil rights. to me and my constituents, countless advocates and people most directly impacted, they are interconnected and all speak to whether the department under your leadership will advance justice or simply pay lip service to it. given the limited time that we have i don't expect you to comment on all of these issues, but i have a question. will you commit to working with me on the issues by having your staff promptly writing your position and sending ut to us, reaching out to us about the issues we just spoke about? >> be happy to have office of legislative affairs work with your staff, i want to say i could not be prouder of the civil rights record of this department. it is the fundamental basis for why the justice department was founded. we have a history of also being obviously involved in 1960s when i came to the justice department -- >> i'm going to stop you, i'm not disagreeing with any of

that. i want you to understand where i'm coming from the things i would like to see. i don't mean to can you off but reclaim my time. this is what good faith oversight looks like, not the republican playbook running interference for twice impeached, four times indicted, white supremacist dem i god who would rather overthrow our democracy -- >> thank you chairman. on october 21, 2021, before this committee i asked you about mr. scott smith. a father in loudoun county, virginia, arrested at a school board meeting, he questioned the rape of his daughter in the bathroom of a public school there. you said at the time you were unfamiliar with the case. are you now yes or no. >> only that i've read about it in the press. >> memo to address harassment of skooldz school boards, yes or no. >> memo to address violence and

threats of violence in connection with school personnel. >> directed at school boards. >> not directed at school boards, but school personnel, school administrators. >> throughout the country, a priority for the federal government for the united states attorney's office, that followed a letter from the national school board association to president biden and emails from the national school board association to the white house in which the white house asked for specific threats. one of the examples was scott smith. subsequent to our hearing two years ago, 26 states left the national school board association and slavin resigned. last week mr. smith was pardoned by governor youngkin. do you think the governor was correct? yes or no. >> pardon authority belongs to the governor. >> you don't have opinion whether the governor was correct? >> i don't know the facts of the case, so i'm not in position -- >> have you rescinded the memo you issued in 2021, yes or no. >> what we are discussing -- >> have you rescinded the memo,

yes or no. >> what we are discussing occurred. >> does the memo exist, yes or no. rescinded? >> memo was intended to have meetings in 30 days. >> 30 days have finished, nothing has happened in more than a year and a half. >> it has not been reas i understanded. >> nothing to rescind. >> despite evidence from the national school board association commissioned report that officials discussed with doj more than a week before the letter was sent, nsba has apologized, have you. >> testified seven times since -- >> first time you are back here since we talked about. >> sorry? >> first time here in front of us. have you apologized for the memo that implicated scott smith as do domestic terrorist, he is now pardoned. >> the memo said nothing about him, nothing about parents

terrorists, nothing about school boards. >> labelling an american citizen a domestic terrorist in a memo and referring to it and a memo that's built on the back of that, but now the compliment to the civil rights division. mark hawk in pennsylvania, arrested, after his lawyers had said he would appear voluntarily. local authorities investigated, found no case. mark was arrested by the fbi for face act violations. jury met for an hour, hawk was acquitted. now, when i was in federal court i don't remember that being my result very often. i don't remember it happening at all we took it to a jury and acquitted after an hour. did you investigate this or in question the united states attorney why they wasted resources for such an obvious result and can you explain yes or no that was a good use of the department of justice's authority? >> justice department respects the jury's verdict, the decisions in that case were made

by agents and prosecutors on the ground. >> are you concerned that enforcement of the face act has been bias towards pro lifers over anti-life protestors, 126-4 by our count and asking for information to track down the information of such prosecutions. 126 times against pro lifers versus four times for people who dare to question the issue of life. i'll leave that out there to say that is the civil rights division at play, meanwhile, we have, you know, the very liberal progressive groups targeted as well, senator cruz and i sent a letter to you asking for information about how the fbi informant had gone to a liberal group pro life meeting, we didn't get any response. i would ask if you would respond to the letter we sent in march asking about fbi infiltrating such a meeting. >> i know what you are referring to -- i will ask the office to

look into the letter. >> -- tax cases a general matter approval by main justice yes or no, no matter what venue has justice. generally speaking, yes, main justice runs tax division yes or no. >> in the hunter biden case i assured mr. weiss. >> not what i'm asking about. i have not mentioned that guy's name. i didn't, i very simply asked a simple question. do tax cases require approval by main justice. as a general matter. >> most of the time but not when the attorney general has granted authority to a u.s. attorney to do what he thinks is best. >> in a terp battle -- >> mr. chairman, point of order. >> i recall my colleague. >> the time is expired. >> minute and a half of additional time. >> the gentleman's time is

expired. chair recognizes the gentlelady from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and attorney general garland, thank you first and foremost for your public service and your dedication to justice. i'm delighted to see you here today. thank you for appearing before us. i represent el paso, texas, a community right on the u.s.-mexico border and so we have been witnessing firsthand the abuses at the hands of governor greg abbott through operation lone star, began in 2021. he, governor abbott has deployed state resources and texas national guardsmembers to the state's border with mexico and operation lone star has created border management challenges, it's resulted in countless humanitarian and due process violations for migrants, it's harmed guardsmen assigned to the

mission, it's cost the state billions of dollars, and it has completely undermined the federal government, and i sent you a letter, democratic colleagues from texas sent you a letter in july about abbott's floating barriers. i know that is now going -- that case is going through appeal but we have also learned the national guard shot -- a guardsman shot at a mexican national across the rio grande, and in september, on september 1st, in sent you a letter asking that the doj investigate that. we also know that governor abbott, we have learned from whistleblowers, he has ordered national guardsmen to prevent migrants from turning themselves in to cbp, has even ordered that they push people back into mexico. and mr. chairman, i would like to unanimous consent to enter into the record an el paso times

article from earlier this week, texas national guard orders hundreds of asylum seekers on u.s. territory back into mexico. >> no objection. >> this in addition to governor abbott separating fathers from their children and their families, it's just -- it's agregious what is happening on the border via operation lone star. attorney general garland, are you able to speak to any responses the department has had to governor abbott's blatant undermining of federal immigration authority? >> i can obviously speak on one question, when -- we brought suit under the rivers and harbors act for the interference with navigable waters, that case is still under adjudication in the district court. >> i understand that. there are other issues, i want to make sure i flag them for you today at this hearing.

but would also like for your folks to take a close look at the investigation that i have requested, and i will be sending a follow-up letter after what we have learned just this week from the el paso times. switching gears, i do want to offer you an opportunity for some rebuttal because what we have seen from some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is their penchant for performance, for twitter, and for other news programs. mr. attorney general, we have heard a lot of accusations regarding some u.s. attorney's offices not partnering with mr. weiss, and hypotheticals about what that means. can you please explain the difference between partnering with a u.s. attorney's office and acting as a special attorney or a special counsel? >> i can talk about it, obviously in the abstract and the theoretical. it's a normal process of a department, if prosecutors from one area of the country and has

a case that has significance in another to speak with the u.s. attorney in the other district, find out what the policies of the district are, to find out what the practices are, to see how judges in that district react to different kinds of charges. sometimes a decision is made to partner together in those investigations, and sometimes a decision is made for the u.s. attorney from the other district to have his or her own people bring those cases. i have personally been involved in i think three of those cases during a period when i was an assistant u.s. attorney and over my entire career i have been given 515 authority twice myself for this purpose. it is not -- it is just a mechanical question of what courts require in order to make an appearance. >> thank you so much, mr. rl