A Daily Caller News Foundation reporter discussed inaccuracies in an op-ed by Attorney General Merrick Garland during a Monday interview.
DCNF Supreme Court Reporter Katelynn Richardson told Newsmax radio host Rob Carson that people disputing Garland’s June 11 Washington Post op-ed had “so many places” to start questioning the Department of Justice’s politicization. The FBI and Justice Department have faced accusations that they have become politicized in cases involving pro-life advocates, two indictments against former President Donald Trump, the handling of investigations against Hunter Biden and parents protesting at school board meetings.
“There’s so many places we can begin,” Richardson told Carson. “I think we can begin with his claim that any assertion that the DOJ was involved in Trump’s Manhattan case is a conspiracy theory.”
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Richardson noted how then-top DOJ official Matthew Colangelo took a role as senior counsel during the business records trial of Trump, which resulted in Trump’s May 30 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. She also pointed to efforts by special counsel Jack Smith to have Trump’s trials on charges pertaining to classified documents and efforts to contest the 2020 election done before the election.
“If you look at Trump’s D.C. case, special prosecutor Jack Smith there has made every effort to rush this case to trial ahead of the election,” Richardson said.
Carson noted that Colangelo’s departure, Smith’s appointment and a White House visit by Nathan Wade, who served as a special counsel and lover to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, occurred in a short timeframe.
“I think the timing is certainly interesting and I think this is something Merrick Garland should have addressed in his op-ed,” Richardson said. “He didn’t bring up any of this at all, he didn’t engage with any of these claims. Also, just last week, FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor testified before Congress and talked about how DOJ should have intervened in this Manhattan case.”
Carson also noted the use of a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden that was the subject of an October 2020 report by the New York Post during his trial on federal firearms charges brought by special counsel David Weiss. Dozens of former intelligence officials signed an October 2020 letter published by Politico that claimed the bombshell New York Post report about the emails from the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The DCNF confirmed the authenticity of one of the emails in October 2020. The Washington Post and New York Times confirmed the authenticity of the data in March 2022 in articles about investigations into Hunter Biden by the Department of Justice.
“They used the laptop in the trial,” Richardson said. “Special counsel David Weiss pulled evidence from it to use against Hunter Biden, there was a FBI agent on the stand who said she saw no evidence of tampering with the data, so this again, being all verified… the laptop is indeed real.”
