Garland ‘Claims’ No Double Standard for Republicans & Democrats – Watch
Attorney General Merrick Garland has repeatedly insisted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) does not have different rules for Republicans and Democrats. In a recent interview, Garland said that the DOJ “follows the facts and the law, regardless of the political affiliation of the person under investigation.”
Garland made the remarks during an interview that aired Sunday night on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” with co-host Scott Pelley.
“We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats,” Garland said. “We don’t have one rule for foes and another for friends. We don’t have one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, for the rich or for the poor, based on ethnicity. We have only one rule; and that one rule is that we follow the facts and the law, and we reach the decisions required by the Constitution, and we protect civil liberties.”
Garland was not willing to speak about the two federal criminal cases against former President Donald Trump because it was an ongoing case and the Department’s policy is that he cannot comment about it.
“One reason is to protect the privacy and the civil liberties of the person who’s under investigation,” Garland said in explaining why the rule exists for all investigations. “It’s to protect witnesses who also may or may not become public later in an investigation. And then finally, it’s to protect the investigation itself. Investigations proceed in many different directions, eventually coming to a fruition, a decision to charge or not charge about a particular thing or not. And if witnesses and potential subjects knew everything that the investigators had previously looked at and were about to look at, it could well change testimony. It could well make witnesses unavailable to us.”
Garland faced criticism from those who say that he timed the prosecutions to hurt Trump in the 2024 election.
“Well, that’s absolutely not true,” he said. “Justice Department prosecutors are nonpartisan. They don’t allow partisan considerations to play any role in their determinations.”
“We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats. We don't have one rule for foes and another for friends,” says Attorney General Merrick Garland. “We have only one rule; and that one rule is that we follow the facts and the law.” https://t.co/PtVa036DOa pic.twitter.com/6OsPzAKmId
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 1, 2023
