Anthony Zurcher
At the House Judiciary Committee hearing

Republican House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan began by launching a wide-ranging attack on the Biden administration and the Justice Department, demonstrating exactly how all-encompassing the Republican criticism of the US justice system - and the Biden Justice Department in particular - has become.

Hunter Biden, the federal investigation of Donald Trump and US government contacts with social media companies were just a few of the topics Mr Jordan touched on.

It’s just a hint of the smorgasbord of criticisms Attorney General Merrick Garland will have to address in today’s hearing.

The risk for Republicans is that they lose focus with this a shotgun-style approach and diminish the political impact of the hearing. Democrats, for their part, will be doing their best to help muddy the waters.

In his opening statement, Merrick Garland repeatedly defended the justice department's independence and vowed to "not back down from defending our democracy".

As we saw in the excerpts we reported earlier, Garland immediately sought to make it clear that the department applies "the same laws apply to everyone".

"There is not one set of laws for the powerful and another for the powerless….or one for Democrats and another for Republicans," he said. "Our job is to pursue justice without fear or favour."

Garland added that "our job is not to take orders from the president, or Congress, or anyone else about who to criminally investigate".

"Our job is to follow the facts and the law," he said.

In an emotional moment, in which Garland seemed to choke up, Garland also spoke of family members who perished in the Holocaust before coming to the US - which he said inspired him to pursue a legal career.

"That is why I am here," he said.

We've just heard opening remarks from House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerry Nadler, a Democrat, who took aim at Republicans for "wasting countless taxpayer dollars" on what he says are baseless investigations into President Biden and his family.

"Extreme MAGA Republicans have poisoned our vital oversight work," Nadler says, in a reference to former President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again slogan.

"They've ignored our legitimate oversight responsibilities and use their power to stage one political stunt after another."

He says Republican lawmakers on the committee are "desperate" to find evidence for an "absurd impeachment" into President Biden and are also hoping to distract from the legal challenges Trump is facing.

"Today, I implore the public to see through this sham," he says.

The hearing begins with a fiery statement from committee chairman Jim Jordan.

"The fix is in," Jordan said at the outset, a reference to allegations that the department of justice slow-walked an investigation into Hunter Biden.

He added that a plea deal for the president's son - which collapsed in June - was "ridiculous".

Jordan also attacked Merrick Garland's selection of David Weiss as the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Biden, arguing that the move ultimately "protected" him from prosecution.

His comments also included often-repeated claims that the justice department is safeguarding Joe Biden while at the same time "going after" former President Donald Trump.

This promises to be a fiery and combative meeting.

Anthony Zurcher
At the House Judiciary Committee hearing

Image source, Reuters

The members of Congress and the audience in the Judiciary Committee room stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag.

A small group of the public who had been let into the chamber to observe the proceedings put particular emphasis on the closing line of the pledge: "With liberty and justice for all."

Image source, Getty Images

The House Judiciary Committee is a permanent standing committee of the House of Representatives, one of two chambers that make up the US Congress alongside the senate.

As a committee, it is tasked with overseeing all matters related to the administration of the federal court system and law enforcement agencies.

Because of the nature of the work, the panel's 44 members traditionally have a legal background, although this isn't a requirement.

Importantly, the committee is tasked with overseeing the impeachment proceedings against administration officials - making it one of the best-known House committees.

This year alone, for example, it has held hearings into the potential impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of the surge of undocumented migration at the US-Mexico border.

Notably, at today's hearing, Garland is not required to answer questions from the 25 Republicans and 19 Democrats that make up the committee.

In his comments today, is appears Garland is going to argue that the justice department is a non-partisan entity that isn’t swayed by the president or by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Excerpts of his prepared remark seen by reporters ahead of today’s hearing show that Garland will tell the committee that he is “not the president’s lawyer” nor “Congress’s prosecutor”.

“The justice department works for the American people,” he will say, according to the excerpts. “Our job is not to do what is politically convenient”.

Additionally, Garland plans to defend federal prosecutors who have sometimes been subject to threats of violence as a result of their duties.

“Singling out individual career public servants who are just doing their job is just dangerous - particularly of increased threats to the safety of public servants and their families,” he says in the excerpts.

“We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside influence,” he adds.

Merrick Garland, 70, has been the US Attorney General since March 2021, two months after being nominated for the role by President Biden.

Before that, he was chief judge of the Washington appeals court since 2013.

He’d previously worked in the justice department during the Clinton administration, where he oversaw a number of high-profile investigations including the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombings.

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the US Supreme Court, but his hopes were dashed after Republican senators refused to hold a vote on his nomination.

His tenure so far during the Biden administration has included the nomination of special counsels to oversee investigations into Donald Trump and Hunter Biden, as well as the sprawling investigation into the 6 January riot at the US Capitol - the largest in US history.

Image source, Getty Images

It is, in theory, a routine hearing. In previous years, it would have largely focused on overarching law enforcement policies and initiatives.

Today’s hearing, however, is anything but ordinary.

Republicans on the panel are expected to pepper Garland with questions about the justice department’s investigation into the president's son Hunter Biden and the collapse of a plea deal, as well as the two federal indictments of Trump.

Added to that, in the past, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and several other Republicans had suggested that they could open an impeachment inquiry into Garland over the justice department’s handling of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax returns.

Emma Owen
In Washington DC

Good morning from Washington DC, where we're awaiting the appearance of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who's head of the Justice Department, before a committee of lawmakers.

It's a scheduled appearance at which he'll be asked about his management of the justice department.

But of course, politics and justice have collided at breakneck speed over the last year - with four sets of indictments against former president Donald Trump, and more recently, the indictment of President Joe Biden's son Hunter on gun charges.

Passions run high on this topic, and we can expect some robust questioning from Republicans.

Stick with us and we'll bring you all the latest from the hearing.