The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Department of Justice (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S4813-S4814 on Sept. 19.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Department of Justice
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, when Attorney General Garland went through the confirmation process for his current job as Attorney General of the United States, he made a solemn pledge to keep politics out of the Justice Department. I, for one, was encouraged by his statement, having seen the disastrous politicization of the Justice Department under former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.
Attorney General Garland said this. He said:
I will never make a decision in the Department based on politics or partisanship.
I took him at his word. I hoped we wouldn't see a return to the days when people saw double standards play out in the Justice Department based on who happened to be in office, who happened to be investigated. But, clearly, under Attorney General Garland's leadership, the Department of Justice has pointed its arrows toward concerned parents, for example, who are exercising their First Amendment rights to speak up about their children's education. Attorney General Garland has sued the State of Georgia and the State of Texas, for example, claiming that ballot integrity measures that are within the prerogative of the States to pass were somehow suppressing the public's right to vote.
We are going to start voting in about 50 days from now. That is the main election date. In Texas, we will start voting a full 2 weeks before that date, where, without any reason whatsoever, you can show up and vote in person, 2 full weeks before the general election. Yet Attorney General Garland spins the false narrative that somehow the State of Texas is suppressing people's right to vote.
And then Attorney General Garland I think shocked everybody by authorizing an unprecedented search warrant on a former President and a current political rival when less intrusive means and methods would have produced the same documents that they claimed to be after.
Time and time again, the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland has taken aggressive actions that are viewed by the Biden administration as politically advantageous. For everybody else, though, it is a different story, that double standard. When Supreme Court Justices are receiving death threats, including the interdiction of a deranged man who was out to kill Justice Kavanaugh here in the Nation's Capital, the Attorney General did not respond by taking appropriate steps to prevent that violence. In fact, he fanned the flames. Instead of protecting the Justices, he chose to criticize them and encouraged what amounts to irresponsible conduct on the part of people on the left.
And now I am concerned about the Department's double standard in the handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. The public reports are that the President's son has been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware for a long time now. There is a lot, of course, we don't know, but reported leaks and evidence seem to show that Hunter Biden may have committed various felonies, including tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign lobbying violations. Despite the severity of these concerns, recent news reports have painted an alarming picture of the Department of Justice's handling of this investigation: silencing whistleblowers, downplaying or discrediting inculpatory information, prohibiting the Department of Justice and FBI employees from communicating with Members of Congress. This does not look, sound, or smell like an impartial investigation guided only by the facts and the rule of law.
Just across the street from here sits the Supreme Court of the United States. On the front of that Court is the inscription ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' There is no footnote. There is no asterisk. There is no exception for relatives of the President of the United States. Every American is entitled to fair and equal treatment and equal justice under the laws. The Attorney General must guarantee that Hunter Biden receives the same treatment as any other American who is under criminal investigation--not better, not worse, but the same.
Today, 32 of my colleagues and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Garland urging him to provide special counsel authorities and protections to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is leading the investigation into Hunter Biden. This is a critical step that the Attorney General can and should take to restore faith in this investigation and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. So I hope he will honor our request, do what he pledged to do when he was confirmed, and keep politics out of this investigation and, in the process, restore public confidence in our Nation's most revered institutions.
