Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday forcefully pushed back against Republican accusations of a two-tiered Justice Department that favors Democrats. 

GOP lawmakers have repeatedly accused the Justice Department and FBI of aggressively investigating former President Donald Trump and going easy on Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. 

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Garland insisted the Justice Department applies the same laws to everyone.

“There is not one set of laws for the powerful and another for the powerless, one for the rich and another for the poor, one for Democrats and another for Republicans,” he said. 

“As the President himself has said and I reaffirm today, I am not the president's lawyer,” Garland continued. “I will add I am not Congress' prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people. Our job is to follow the facts and the law, and that is what we do.”

That explanation did not satisfy Republicans, who continued to hammer Garland, particularly over the investigation into Hunter Biden. They repeatedly pointed to testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who claimed investigators have slow-walked the inquiry and that the DOJ blocked its lead prosecutor, David Weiss, from filing certain charges and from being elevated to special counsel status.

Weiss has disputed the whistleblowers’ claims in multiple letters to Congress. Garland named Weiss a special counsel last month. The attorney general testified the appointment was made after Weiss made the request for the first time.

Weiss, who has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, was appointed U.S. attorney of Delaware by former President Donald Trump and retained by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Even before Weiss’ special counsel designation, Garland had vowed to allow Weiss to operate independently to avoid any appearance of interference from the Biden administration. 

Garland testified the White House has never made any requests to him or other senior DOJ officials about the Hunter Biden probe.

The recurring theme of the hearing was Republicans pressing Garland for answers about the Hunter Biden investigation, only to have the attorney general say he was purposefully unaware. 

“I promised the Senate when I came before it for confirmation that I would leave Mr. Weiss in place and that I would not interfere with his investigation,” Garland said. “I have kept that promise.”

Yet, at times, frustrated Republicans seemed to suggest Garland should be more involved in the investigation.

“Blissfully ignorant,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.. “It’s like you’re looking the other way on purpose.”

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., suggested Garland should have been more inquisitive about whether Weiss was facing any obstacles in his investigation or why investigators allowed the statute of limitations on some potential tax charges to expire. 

“The way to not interfere is to not investigate an investigation,” Garland replied. 

The attorney general stressed that Weiss will submit a report when his investigation concludes explaining his decisions. 

Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s chairman, argued, without evidence, that investigators allowed the statutes of limitations to lapse because the years in question involved payments from Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings to Hunter Biden that also “involved the president.” 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced last week that Republicans are opening an impeachment investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden related to his son’s business affairs. Democrats and some Republicans have said there’s no evidence to support the inquiry.

Jordan made other dubious claims during the hearing, including arguing that Trump did “everything” the Justice Department and FBI “asked him to do” in terms of returning classified documents. The former president, who has publicly argued he had a right to keep the documents, faces 40 criminal charges of willful retention of national defense information and obstruction. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Jordan also accused Garland of naming Weiss, despite his nomination by Trump, as special counsel because he is “the one guy he knows will protect Joe Biden.”

At the start of the hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the panel’s top-ranking Democrat, predicted there would be a “deluge of conspiracy theories” from Republicans and claimed that every assertion in Jordan’s opening remarks had been refuted by witnesses who had previously testified before the committee.

Republicans argued that Weiss deliberately let the statutes of limitations run out and offered Hunter Biden “a sweetheart deal” that would have allowed him to avoid jail time. The plea agreement, however, unraveled upon scrutiny from a federal judge. 

Last week, Hunter Biden was indicted on three charges related to falsely claiming on a form he was not addicted to any illegal drugs when he purchased a gun. Additional charges are possible. His lawyers said Tuesday he plans to plead not guilty to the charges in the gun case.

GOP members also slammed Garland for choosing Jack Smith to serve as special counsel in the investigations into Trump over the classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., cited Smith’s meeting with an IRS official at the center of a decade-old scandal targeting politically-aligned nonprofit groups and his corruption prosecution of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, which the Supreme Court overturned.

“That leads me to only two explanations: either corruption or incompetence. Which is it?” McClintock asked Garland. 

“Those are the kinds of questions that judges would rule out of order,” the attorney general responded.

Garland again explained Weiss is continuing an investigation started during the Trump administration. He said Smith “had a nationwide reputation for integrity and for prosecution” and is not affiliated with either major political party.

“That does not seem like a double standard,” Garland insisted.

The White House condemned Wednesday's hearing as "a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation" in an effort to harm President Biden and his family -- and a "sideshow" to distract from a looming government shutdown.

"Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown," said Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, in a statement. "They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family.

"Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days, hurting our economy and national security and jeopardizing everything from troop pay to fighting fentanyl," Sams continued. "These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country."