there has been pushback about the funding, but he is going to do that, samantha power is going to brief them as well on the congressional aid for humanitarian relief. they've announced for rebuilding and getting food to ukraine. we'll have a lot more on that tomorrow. thank you so much, admiral stavridis in this abbreviated edition, we brought you the hearing, though, all of it, and it will continue as well. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports" just quickly pointing out that prime minister netanyahu met with president biden today, and for the first time alluded to something that is happening behind the scenes. we'll have a lot more reporting on that, which is a developing agreement with saudi arabia, would recognize israel and end arab, israeli disputes. israel wants it. the white house is thinking about it, we'll have a lot more coming up on that. "chris jansing reports" starts right now.

♪♪ good day, i'm chris january sing live at msnbc headquarters in new york. as we come on the air, a remarkable split screen in washington, the gravity of the government shutdown pitted against the merrick garland hearing, what one democrat dubbed a clown show. keep in mind it was just a few hours ago that speaker mccarthy tried to convince reporters he can somehow get his party united in time to fend off a government shutdown, which is looming in just a week and a half. >> look, it's not september 30th. the game is not over, so we continue to work through it, and i've been at this place many times before, and we're going to solve this problem. >> and yet, many of the republicans he'll need to make that happen are not focused on the shutdown or the potential economic catastrophe that awaits americans if this thing can't be avoided. they spent all day in a hearing room launching allegation after

allegation at the a.g., often without waiting for an answer, focusing on issues like this. >> somehow who bought hunter biden's art ended up with a prestigious appointment to a federal position. doesn't it look weird that he is -- he's become this immediate success in the art world as his dad is president of the united states? isn't that odd? >> i'm not going to comment about any -- >> not going to comment, not going to investigate. >> and that's where we want to start, on capitol hill where conservatives on the house judiciary committee got their long-awaited shot of attorney general merrick garland. that hearing long on allegations about two-tiered justice systems and conspiracy theories surrounding hunter biden, but short on substance, mostly because republicans rarely gave garland any time to answer. (. >> they talked to hunter biden's defense counsel and say let's extend the statute of limitations and then at some point they made an intentional decision to say we're going to

let the statute of limitations lapse, and i want to know who decided that and why they did it. >> mr. weiss was the supervisor of the investigation at that time and at all times. he made the appropriate decisions, and you'll be able to ask him that question and he will -- >> you know why they did it. everyone knows why they did it. may not say it, but everyone knows why they didn't it. those tax sheers, that dealt with the -- that involved president. it's one thing to have a gun charge in delaware, that doesn't involve the president of the united states. but burisma, oh, my, that goes right to the white house. we can't have that. >> nbc's garrett haake is following all the developments from capitol hill. glenn kirschner is host of the justice matters podcast and an msnbc legal analyst. michael schmidt is washington correspondent for "the new york times" garrett, any substantive headlines from this hearing? >> reporter: i was struck by the fact that house republicans are probably thrill that had this hearing fell when it did on the calendar. grilling merrick garland units

them that funding the government hasn't done so far. to me this is all about house republicans trying to set a predicate for their impeachment inquiry into joe biden by peppering the a.g. with questions about what he knows about the investigation into hunter biden, how it began, what his conversations were about it, and what his supervisor role is or is not in it now. garland largely can't answer those questions. he's trying to keep his hands out of it. as you kind of understand from the clip you just played with jim jordan, to house republicans that's somehow a sign of further malfeasance malfeasance. so we go back and forth on that topic, and i suspect as we get into the later rounds this afternoon, that will continue to be the focus from the republican side of the aisle. >> michael, no surprise this was really a tidal wave of allegations, china, burisma, and then of course hunter biden's career. sometimes asking four or five

questions at once. you have reported extensively on hunter biden. did we learn anything here? >> i don't think so. i thought that the clip you played of jordan at the top was interesting because it was clear that they are very dissatisfied with just the gun charge. i think we sort of knew that. they had said that, but it put a sharp point on it that they think that the cover-up here is about not bringing charges related to things that may touch joe biden and the gun doesn't touch joe biden. my guess is that these republicans were going to be dissatisfied no matter what, but what it is is just increased pressure that they're trying to put on the prosecutors here as they have in recent monthmonths trying to pump them as hard as possible and trying to get it in front of the judge, that

increase, that intensity on the investigation. >> there is so much intensity now as you well know, michael. we learned that hunter biden is suing two of the whistle-blowers alleging that they illegally let out information about his taxes. how much peril is there on a lot of different levels with the president, i mean, for example, in this case you could argue while it's a legal strategy, but the political implications are very different. >> well, it was sort of interesting. so hunter biden has sued the irs for these disclosures of this information about him to congress and to the public. these irs agents have claimed that they're whistle-blowers. they have gone through a process, they say, with house republicans, and as part of that, a lot of new information has come out, and we learned about the investigation. our reporting showed that david weiss, that prosecutor from delaware that as those disclosures were coming out, he was asking for more and more

from hunter biden. initially he was willing to go along with hunter biden not pleading guilty to anything. but as more and more of these accusations and allegations and information came out from the whistle-blowers, he asked for more and more from hunter that eventually got to this plea deal in june which unravels in july. lots of twists and turns in the hunter biden story. >> as we wait for merrick garland to come back, glenn, talk about the challenge for the a.g. here, trying to remain independent, not commenting on investigations, which is what attorneys generals do. can someone, though, in his position even get into a political fight, or is this simply a no-win situation for him? >> yeah, i think he realizes that he is there as a problem so members of congress can make the speeches as you said a minute ago, chris, sometimes asking four and five questions and not really wanting an answer, not giving him time to answer, so i think he has a very difficult

job. because one, he can't get involved in political disputes, and two, he can't answer any questions about ongoing investigations, the hunter biden investigation or any other investigation. so what does that do? it makes him look evasive when, in fact, he's really trying to follow the rules and do the job of an attorney general as it should be done, as we require it to be done. i don't envy him. i'm sure he has a significant level of frustration that he tries to tamp down, but i think he was trying to answer the questions as best he could. >> i want to dig into the latest legal developments, glenn, that involve hunter biden. we know his attorney now says he will plead not guilty to those three firearms charges against him. what's his best defense there? >> well, one of his -- i think his best defense, chris, to directly answer your question, is whether the statute that the prosecutors are proceeding under is unconstitutional or has been

questioned. its constitutionality has been questioned, which it has i believe in the fifth circuit court of appeals, and whether that gives him a legal defense. not necessarily a factual defense to whether he made misrepresentations on the form or not when he was purchasing the firearm, but whether that form suffers from some constitutional infirmity because it sort of intrudes on people's second amendment right to bear arms. i think that will be a robustly litigated defense, and you know, it may very well be that the biden defense team can win that argument, which would result in him not being prosecuted on the gun charges. >> so garrett, what's next for this investigation by house republicans? >> well, we're going to see the first impeachment inquiry hearing next week, connected by the oversight committee, james comer, the head of that committee has said as much.

we don't know much about what's going to happen in that hearing. it's going to involve legal experts. they sort of need to have a reset here. this impeachment inquiry began as lawmakers were coming back from a six-week recess. there was no particular new evidence or impetus to launch this hearing, and republicans have been delving into hunter biden and his business deals for nine months now. i think there's an effort on the part of these house republican leaders who are putting together the impeachment inquiry to have a little bit of a reskpet try to bring a broader audience into the work they're doing. they've indicated they're going to go aggressively after the bank records of hunter biden and james biden. that's one of the things they think they have additional authority to do now because this impeachment inquiry has been declared. that's not something that's necessarily been tested on a legal basis. nevertheless, again, i think this hearing today kind of sets up the opportunity for republicans to remind folks what this is all about, and then next

week they're going to try to press forward with this inquiry in some form or fashion with this hearing late next week. garrett haake and michael schmidt, thank you both. glenn, you're going to stay with me. stick around, we have more on that other big story on the hill, a government shutdown appearing more and more inevitable. the latest on negotiations in just 60 seconds. ns in just 60 seconds. (ella) fashion moves fast. setting trends is our business. we need to scale with customer demand... ...in real time. (jen) so we partner with verizon to take our operations to the next level. (marquis) with a custom private 5g network. (ella) with verizon business, we get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. (marquis) so our customers get what they want, when they want it. (jen) it's not just a network. it's enterprise intelligence. (vo) learn more. it's your vision, it's your verizon. we were blown away. (chuckles) legacy is really, really big at howard university so it's really a special moment to know that

i had a family member who over a hundred years prior have walk these grounds. oh, booking.com ♪ somewhere, anywhere... ♪ ♪ i just want to lie motionless in a chair! ♪ booking.com, booking.yeah ♪ ♪ in a stunning setback for house speaker kevin mccarthy, five members of his caucus broke th the party and blocked debate on a military funding measure. "politico" calls the result a hostage situation on full display, and a lot of other republicans are really unhappy about it. >> i am disappointed. our inability to bring this package to a floor vote because of these five individuals who decided to put their personal agendas ahead of the basic

requirements of our troops is extremely upsetting to us. it is a bad look to not be able to get a rule through the floor, and when you do that, what you've effectively done is hand the keys of the majority over to the minority. >> now mccarthy and his house gop leadership team are scrambling to find a way forward with few options to avoid a shutdown that democrats now believe is all but inevitable. joining us is nbc's ali vitali, barbara comstock, a former republican congresswoman from virginia. ali, the word i keep hearing and reading about this is chaos. what's the latest where you are? >> reporter: this has to be a moment where congresswoman come stock feels good about the fact she's not here right now. i heard a veteran republican lawmakers behind me saying there's always a way forward and trailing off. right now it's completely unclear what that way forward might be. of course mccarthy is making threats that lawmakers could be here through the weekend,

anything to keep that pressure on, as we know that the clock ticks down. i think the important thing to remember here is that as long as it takes the house to do their work, this thing then has to go to the senate to avoid an actual shutdown by the 30th, and the senate is everything except for speedy in its movings on things like this that require a lot of different procedures to be met before they can move forward with passing this house bill, and we also expect there to be several significant changes once the senate gets their hands on it. of course we can't even begin to dig into that conversation until the house figures out what it can pass. and there is just palpable frustration here from republican and democratic members alike at just the sheer confusion right now as several members of this conference are effectively able to hold the speaker and the entire building hostage while they try to exercise their leverage on trying to get government spending cuts to the levels that they want them at. of course, again, that's not something that the senate is going to abide by. this puts us back in the same

territory that we saw mccarthy have to navigate during that debt ceiling crisis, and it's why there's so much ire from the conservative members here at mccarthy because they feel that they were sold out with the eventual bipartisan deal early in the summer, and now they're trying to avoid that by pushing him as far to the right as they possibly can. we'll see how long they're able to hold this posture, but certainly you look at yesterday's vote. it should be shocking when you see republicans unable to come together on funding for the military. those congressmen were right that it is embarrassing for the speaker to send something to the floor and watch it fail. but also that may have been part of the strategy here, when i was talking to speaker mccarthy yesterday, he was clear that sometimes putting things on the floor and just seeing the votes get passed can be clarifying. in this case, the vote didn't pass, but it was clarifying in that he's got members of his conference who are willing to take the short-term pain if it means that they can get what they want in the long run, chris. >> yeah, do you see a way forward, congresswoman, for example, if speaker mccarthy

agrees to a deal that would include democrats, what are the chances it costs him the speaker's gavel? what other options does he have? what do you see? >> my dog is barking, sounding like some of those republicans, you know, they have no plan. they just want to bark, right? and their bark -- >> i like to think of it as a -- to "chris jansing reports" so continue. >> no, i mean, the problem, but actually putting it on the floor, you have people like matt gaetz who's been one of the ring leaders who has a contingent, even he had to vote for it. i think that was a wise thing to do. it puts him in a position where, you know, you have to call their bluff. so that was a wise decision. i mean, listen, they were -- you know, they had this agreement on these numbers, and then you have people come back and say, you know, no, we want a lower number. you know, the senate is run by democrats.

you know, as "the wall street journal" pointed out, you know, you don't have this negotiating power that you think you have. and the four or five votes that they lost yesterday, these were people who were running for higher office. these are just performance artists. you know, people like matt rosendale who's running for senate and trying to be the more, you know, outrageous person, dane bishop who's running for attorney general down in north carolina, so this is what you have. you have people who were just trying to get more clicks and really aren't running -- you know, trying to get something done. so you know, i think they do need to keep putting things out there in order to force these guys to say, hey, you're going to hurt our military. you're hurting the american people. >> we're going to go back into that hearing room before the judiciary committee. thank you both so much. the testimony of merrick garland continues. let's listen in. >> search for evidence. >> it totally depends on the circumstance.

>> if the circumstance were that you had a guesthouse where the u.s. attorney, deputy u.s. attorney's saying, well, we know that there's -- we suspect there's a lot of evidence there, but we're not going to really follow that. we're going to -- and calls the attorney from the other side saying we're going to do a search warrant, would that be consistent with your policy? >> okay, again, i know this is no hypothetical, and i don't know the facts of this case, and i don't know what happened, and i believe the events you're talking about is reported in the press occurred under the previous administration. >> no, no, no. that event didn't happen on the previous administration. let's talk about that. you keep saying this happened in the previous administration, but let's talk about this for just a moment. you keep saying i don't know what happened there, but i'm going to opine when it happened. you see the fallacy of that, the inconsiste inconsistencies? i don't know when it happened, i don't know what happened because i'm not involved, but it happened under the previous

administration. that's so logically fallacious. >> i'm sorry, i'm not following what's -- >> yeah, i know you're not following. >> yeah. >> so the question is you got one of your deputy u.s. attorneys calling the attorney on the other side saying, look, we're going to go to these two places. probably go in the next couple of days, and of course then ultimately the search warrant is called off. is that -- is it consistent to call up people where you know that they've got boxes of information or you suspect they have boxes of information, that's why you got the warrant, that's why you're going to go look, and you give them a heads-up so they can mover those boxes of information. would that be consistent with doj policy? >> i'm going to say again, you're asking me actually to comment about allegations on a particular case. >> no, i'm not, i'm asking you is that consistent with your overall policy? forget delaware and what they did and that they actually did that. let's just talk about generic

policy. >> i'm sorry, i thought you were asking about mar-a-lago, i may not have understood. >> oh, yeah, la di da. when we're talking about your general policy, is it your policy, is that acceptable when you suspect that there are movable items to call up and say we're going to be there to look? >> there's no policy on this question. there's strategies and tactics to be used to preserve evidence are left up to the investigators and offices on the ground. sometimes it would be a serious mistake to call up. sometimes -- >> and here once again, you don't know what happened in the hunter biden case because that's -- somebody else is doing it, but you can be sure of the timing of when all this took place. that is one of the biggest oddities of your testimony today. i yield back to the gentleman from colorado. >> gentleman's time is expired. the chair recognizes the gentle lady from pennsylvania.

>> thank you, mr. attorney general. thank you for your decades of faithful service to our country, to our constitution, and to the rule of law. thank you for putting up with this today. the 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. it is a shameful circus, the goal is to spew lies and disinformation ultimately to tear away at the confidence of our independence institutions, in your case today our very important department of justice. that's the exact m.o. of a former president. tear away at the confidence of our independent institutions whether it's our electoral system, the department of justice, the judiciary, and 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 that 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 communities' 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 ask 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 there's 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 died from fentanyl. everything you're 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. we have 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 streets 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 extraordinary folks, the top prosecutor and his able team. they were 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, family history? >> yes, i'm happy to. so i've traveled to ukraine twice to meet with the

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

the icc and i've assigned a prosecutor to our 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 is indispensable and your work is indispensable, thank you, sir. >> the time of the gentle lady is expired. >> do you support the consent decree that i believe was put in place in the city of minneapolis? >> i'm sorry, do i support the -- >> do you support the consent decree that was put in place with the police department of minneapolis? >> the one that was 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 what's -- >> i don't think that's a consequence of the consent

degree. minneapolis has been losing police officers for many years. >> do you support more crime? >> do i support more crime? >> yeah. >> no, i don't. >> so there was just a hearing in minnetonka, minnesota, a suburb of minneapolis just i think this last week where they were just -- they're 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 only four years for a violent crime. do you think that that's a problem? >> an 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 who's brought a number of rico and vicar cases -- >> let me continue -- i got a real short period of time here. >> sorry. >> in regards to disrupting drug networks, why do you think there's so much fentanyl coming into the country? >> because it costs $0.10 to make and it can be sold for $30. >> so sheriff mark daniels sat where you are are a month ago and said urn oath the reason there's such a drastic increase of fentanyl is back on january 20th, 2021, open border 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, the cartels in mexico are bringing this -- are causing this drug to be transmitted into the united states, and we were doing -- >> terrific -- >> -- whatever we can to eliminate that incentive. mr. chairman, just so we're real clear here, this is the same answer we received from secretary mayorkas a couple of months ago when he was in denial about a sheriff who lives at one of the most reputable sheriff's you'll find 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're dealing with fentanyl. you're not because the borders are wide open. i'm going to shift to combatting gun violence. do 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 a hypothetical question, you're 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'll close real quickly with this. >> there was a world naked bike ride in madison, wisconsin, just a couple of 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 to pedaling 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'll have to ask the office of legislative affairs to get back to you about this. >> does it typically take two months to answer questions like this? >> it sounds like you're 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 is. >> state and local law enforcement would not act, we were hoping you would.

it's obviously you're not. >> the gentle lady from north carolina is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, again, mr. attorney general for joining us and for 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, ethniciethnicities religions. the growth and success of my district in 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 center 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 the antidefamation league relatedly found that 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 see 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're 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'll certainly look into what the department's doing in that respect. very soon after i came into the

department, i saw the spike in hate crime threats that were being made and in 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 fufilled i think all of the obligations under that act. we have task forces set up to investigate and prosecute hate crimes both as hate crimes and where they satisfy the requirements as domestic violent extremism or domestic terrorism. we have brought dozens of cases against people who have made these threats as well as those who have attempted to carry them out. as you know, we have a

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. >> yes. >> and i'd like to know how your office is counteracting any cyber attacks and dealing with people who perpetrate them in. >> yeah, so we are vigilant to the risk of these kind of cyber attacks, in that case these were criminal gangs affiliated in russia, a 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 principle sources of our abilities to fight these kind of cyber attacks. whether they are criminal or whether they are launched by nation states, whether they are attempting to get ransom, whether they're simply trying or also simply trying to exfiltrate our information or whether they're 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 gentle lady has expired. we're going to try and move quickly because we've got a 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'd 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 you did so because of the rule of law. you did so because the facts and the law demanded that you did so, and you followed the facts and the law in that situation. the other issue i wanted -- or example in your bio i wanted to point out is 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 that 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. it was 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're unable to answer some questions here, but i'll answer them for you. do 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. -- yeah, 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 wasn't moving fast enough, they would have again said that 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 allow major decisions to be made until they came up to speed. so in three different opportunity where is 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 didn't 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 that prohibits certain anticompetitive practices by dominant online platforms. you can't say who they are, but i can. apple, amazon, facebook, and google are monopolies and they 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

told over in the senate -- and i use the word effort and senate very carefully in the same sentence, but there are efforts in the senate s-2321 to take $50 million in funding for the department of justice antitrust division and -- 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 efforts 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, from harming competition, and from further

strengthening china's position in this area? >> yes, i absolutely will and one of the first things i did in the first budget opportunity we had was to ask for more money for the antitrust division than had ever 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 just point out for the record that attorney general barr left the trump administration on december 23rd, 2020, not between january 6th and january 20th, 2021. with that i recognize the gentle lady -- >> mr. chairman, could i -- i'm sorry, since you mention add monopoly. could i enter into record this mastercard visa duopoly. gentle lady from missouri is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and

thank you for being here, attorney general garland. st. louis and i are here today to make clear what it neents 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 have to share my concerns about specific issues with you directly and to make clear the stuff that i believe that the department needs to take. first off, as this hearing has shown, a small number of the department's cases get an outsized level of attention in 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're doing with the insurrectionists, and i urge you to take specific steps towards ending mandatory minimums and process cue toir misconduct waivers, funding federal public defenders, use of clemency power and reporting on disparities in federal prosecutions. i'm also deeply concerned about the bureau of prisons. director peters is not doing enough to address the rampant issues of abuse and mismanagement at the bureau,

which affects correctional staff ask people in custody. it is shameful that solitary confinement has increased in the bureau of prisons 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 torturous practice of solitary confinement once and for all. i'm also incredibly disheartened that 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 advocating for the commutation of the sentences of everyone on federal death row. i'm also still waiting to see any meaningful progress on the commitments that associate attorney general gup ta announced in june 2022 around the enforcement of title 6 and the safe streets act. i'd also like to -- and i'm

going on and on but i'm taking my time, i'd also like an update on when the department will respond to the oversight committee democrats' letter from june 2021 about the memo issued by the trump administration's office of legal counsel concerning the equal rights amendment, that deeply flawed memo is preventing from the publishing the equal rights amendment as the 28th amendment. i know that olc issued a short clarification after you took office, but the wording was not a clear repudiation of the trump era memo. i urge you to fully withdraw the trump olc memo, which is baselessly obstructing constitutional gender equality for all. finally, i cannot overstate how shocked i am by the targeting of protesters who proposed the construction of the atlantic training center, and i urge the department to investigate these obvious violations of civil rights. they r these may all seem like

unrelated issues, to me, my constituent, the countless advocates and people most directly impacted, they are interconnected and they all speak to whether the department will advance justice. 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 and my office on these issues including having your staff promptly by writing your position and sending that to us reaching out to us about all of the issues that we just spoke about? >> be happy to have the office of legislative affairs work with your staff. i want to say i could not guilty -- 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 the 1960s when i came to the justice department -- >> and i'm not -- i'm going to stop you. i'm not disagreeing with any of that. i want you to understand where

i'm coming from. i don't mean to cut you off, but i need to reclaim my time. this is what good faith oversight looks like, not the republican play book of running interference for a twice impeached four-times indicted white supremacist demagogue who would rather overthrow our democracy than admit he lost an election, thank you, and i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. >> thank you, chairman, thank the attorney general for being here before us today. on october 21st, 2021, before this committee i asked you about mr. scott smith, a father in loudoun county virginia who was arrested at a school board meeting where he questioned the rape of his daughter in a bathroom in the public school there. you said at the time you were unfamiliar with the case. are you now, yes or no? >> only only familiar to the ex i've read about it in the press. >> you sent a memo on october 4, 2021, directing the fbi and u.s. attorneys office to address quote harassment in quote of school boards, yes or no. >> sent a memo to address violence and threats of violence

in connection with school personnel. >> directed at school boards. >> not directed school boards, directed at school personnel. >> throughout the country, through the united states attorneys's office, that followed a letter on september 29th, 2021, from the national school board association to president biden and e-mails from the national school board association director chip slavin, in 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 on september 23rd, of 2021. mr. smith was pardoned by governor young kin, do you think the governor was correct yes or no. >> pardon authority belongs to the governor. >> you don't have an opinion of whether the governor was correct? >> i don't know the facts of the case. >> have you rescinded the memo you issued in 2021? >> have you rescinded the memo yes or no? >> what we are discussing here.

>> has the memo been rescinded? >> the memo was intended to have meetings within 30 days. >> has it been rescinded? >> the 30 days have finished. nothing has happened in more than a year and a half with respect to that. >> it has not been rescinded. >> there's nothing to rescind. >> despite evidence come out from the national school board association that white house officials discussed this with doj a week before the letter was sent, the nsba apologized, have you apologized, yes or no? >> i've testified seven times since that originally memo. >> it's the first time you're back here in front of us. have you apologized for putting that memo out that implicated scott smith as a domestic terrorist, something the governor of virginia has pardoned him from all of these accusations. >> the memo said nothing about him, nothing about parents being terrorists, nothing about attending school boards. >> the answer is it hasn't been

rescinded and you haven't apologized for it labeling an american citizen a domestic terrorist and a memo built on the back of this. we have this, a father arrested with local law enforcement after his lawyers said he would appear voluntarily. local authorities investigated found no case. mark hauk was arrested by the fbi. the jury met for an hour. hauk was acquitted. now, when i was in federal court, i don't think that being my result very often, in fact, i don't remember that happening at all, where we took it to a jury and was acquitted after an hour. did you investigate this or question the united states attorney why they wasted resources for such an obvious result, and can you explain, yes or no, that 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 biassed towards pro lifers, over anti-life protesters, 126-4 by our count. and we're asking information to track down the information of such prosecutions but 126 times against pro lifers, versus four times for people who dare to question the issue of life. i'll leave that out there just to say that is the civil rights division at play. meanwhile, we've got, you know, the very liberal progressive groups being targeted as well. senator cruz and i sent a letter asking for information about how the fbi informant had gone to a liberal group's pro life meeting, and yet we didn't get any response from you, so i would ask if you would respond to our letter we sent back in march asking about fbi infiltrating such a meeting. >> i don't know what you're referring to, but i will ask the office of legislative affairs to look into this letter. >> thank you. our tax cases require approval no matter what district has

venue, yes or no? do tax cases as a general matter require approval no matter what district has venue, yes or no? >> it depends on the circumstances. in the example that i know you're referring to -- >> generally speaking, yes? maine justice run tax division, yes or no? main justice runs the tax division? >> in the hunter biden case -- >> i didn't ask about -- i haven't mentioned that guy's name. i didn't, i asked a very simple question, do tax cases require approval by main justice. >> most -- >> as a general matter? most of the time, but not when the u.s. attorney general has granted authority to do what he thinks is best. >> mr. chairman, point of order. >> i recall my colleague as having a minute and a half of additional time. >> gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the gentle

lady 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 which began in 2021. he -- governor abbott has deployed state resources and texas national guards members 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's authority over immigration. i sent you a letter, my colleagues and i, democratic colleagues from texas sent you a letter in july about abbott's floating barriers. that case is going through appeal. we have learned that the national guardsman shot at a mexican national across the rio grande, and on september first, i sent you a letter asking that the doj investigate that. we also know that governor abbott, we have learned from whistleblowers that he has ordered national guardsmen to prevent migrants from turning themselves in to cvp, has even ordered that they push people back into mexico, and mr. chairman, i would like 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 egregious 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 the buoys question. when we brought suit under the rivers and harbor act for the interference with navigatable waters, that case is still under adjudication in the district court. >> i understand that. there are other issues and 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've learned just this week from the el paso times. >> thank you. >> switching gears, i 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've heard a lot of accusations regarding some u.s. attorneys 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 special counsel? >> i can talk about it obviously in the abstract and the theoretical. it's a normal process of the department. if prosecutors from one area of the country has a case that has

significance in another to speak with the u.s. attorney in the other district to 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 personally have 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 just a mechanical question of what courts require in order to make an appearance. >> thank you so much, mr. garland. again, appreciate your public service to the american people. mr.