Biden’s AG nominee Merrick Garland begins second day of Senate hearings

Merrick Garland, President Biden’s nominee for attorney general, is appearing for a second day before a Senate confirmation hearing panel, in his bid to run the Justice Department. ​

Garland, a federal appeals court judge, is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday about his desire to investigate the events of Jan. 6 when a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters marched to the Capitol and disrupted a joint-session of Congress meeting to certify the November election of Biden. ​

“If confirmed, I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6 — a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government,” ​Garland said ​Monday ​in his opening remarks.  

He’s also expected to continue to be grilled about the unrest last summer across the nation and the role Antifa and Black Lives Matter played in the protests in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, and whether he considers them instances of domestic terrorism. 

​“An attack on a courthouse while in operation, trying to prevent judges from actually deciding cases, that plainly is domestic extremism, domestic terrorism,” ​he said​ on Monday, the first of two days of hearings​.

“An attack simply on a government property at night or any other kind of circumstances is a clear crime and a serious one.”

The senators are also expected to continue to press Garland about how he will handle investigations into Hunter Biden and his business dealings with Ukraine and China while his father was the vice president in the Obama administration. 

Garland was questioned Monday about the scandal involving Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the reporting of nursing home deaths last spring when the coronavirus pandemic was raging in the Empire State. 

That line of questioning is also expected to continue on Tuesday.