Garland Blasts GOP Attacks Amid Contempt Threat; Opening Statements in Hunter Biden Gun Trial

Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back on Republican lawmakers’ claims of a weaponized Justice Department on Capitol Hill on June 4 amid their threats to hold him in contempt of Congress. In his opening remarks, Garland defended the Justice Department’s work "to uphold the rule of law," and said he and the department will "not be intimidated” by what he called “unprecedented” attacks on the department. Garland has repeatedly refused to provide House impeachment investigators with the audio recordings of special counsel Robert Hur’s interviews with President Joe Biden and his ghostwriter. Those refusals led members of the Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability panels to advance contempt resolutions against him.

The federal gun case for President Joe Biden’s son Hunter begins on June 4 as lawyers make their opening arguments one day after a jury was seated. Hunter Biden is facing three felony charges from a 2018 firearm purchase during a time when he was addicted to crack cocaine, according to his memoir. Authorities accuse him of lying to the federally licensed gun store by illegally claiming on his application that he was not a drug user at the time and then unlawfully possessing the gun for 11 days.

Arizona would step directly into immigration enforcement by making it a state crime to cross the Arizona-Mexico border anywhere except a port of entry, under a proposal that’s up for a final vote by lawmakers on Tuesday. If approved, voters would decide in November if the measure becomes law. The measure, scheduled for a vote in the Arizona House, would let state and local police arrest people crossing the border without authorization. It also would empower state judges to order people convicted of the offense to go back to their home country.