AG Garland will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week

Attorney General Merrick Garland will testify for first time in the 118th Congress before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, it was announced Wednesday. 

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced that Garland will testify March 1 at 10:00 a.m. ET when the Senate returns from recess as part of the committee’s oversight of executive agencies, including the Justice Department. 

Garland has incurred multiple requests from Republicans on the committee to return to testify on several matters including protests against Supreme Court justices and FACE Act prosecutions of pro-life protesters. 

The Justice Department on Wednesday indicted eight people under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or the FACE Act, for an incident that took place outside an abortion clinic in Michigan in 2020, adding to the growing list of the DOJ’s prosecutions of abortion clinic protesters.

Garland last appeared before the committee in October 2021.

He answered questions then about his memo to Department of Justice employees addressing a federal response to violence and intimidation of school board officials — despite the National School Boards Association apologizing for the letter that inspired the memo.

The committee’s then-ranking member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, claimed that the DOJ memo had a ‘poisonous, chilling effect’ on speech, as it specifically dealt with opposition to school board officials.

Garland defended the memo, claiming that it was a response ‘to concerns about violence, threats of violence, other criminal conduct.’

Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.