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Lawyer Common Merrick Garland appeared to get indignant throughout a Home listening to on Wednesday when a Republican lawmaker prompt the Justice Division is focusing on Catholics.
“The idea that someone with my family background would discriminate against any religion is so outrageous, so absurd,” Garland stated in the course of the Home Judiciary Committee listening to.
Garland, who’s Jewish, had defined throughout his opening statements that his relations have been victims of non secular persecution in Europe and his grandmother’s siblings have been murdered within the Holocaust.
“There is little doubt that but for America, the same thing would have happened to my grandmother,” Garland stated in his opening remarks, in line with USA In the present day. “But this country took her in, and under the protection of our laws, she was able to live without fear of persecution. That protection is what distinguishes this country from so many others. The protection of law, the rule of law is the foundation of our system of government.”
“Repaying this country for the debt my family owes, for our very lives has been the focus of my entire professional career,” he continued.
Garland appeared emotional a number of occasions throughout his testimony when he referenced his spiritual background.
His fiery rebuke got here after Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) questioned whether or not the Justice Division was unfairly focusing on Catholics due to their spiritual beliefs. The query was relating to an FBI memo leaked in January titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” which Home Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed meant that the FBI was focusing on sure Catholics as home terrorists.
“Both I and the director of the FBI have said that we were appalled … by that memo,” Garland stated in response. “We were appalled by that memo.”
Drew continued to query Garland about whether or not Catholics are extremists.
“Everything in that memo was appalling,” Garland stated. “Catholics are not extremists, no.”
The testimony was a part of a listening to on the Justice Division’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Garland testified that the Justice Division had not gone straightforward on Hunter Biden, as Republicans are claiming.
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