Making his first public comments on the Justice Department’s case against Donald Trump since the former president’s historic indictment, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to discuss “particulars” in the proceedings, but offered praise for special counsel Jack Smith and his team.
“As I said when I appointed Mr. Smith, I did so because it underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability,” Garland told reporters on Wednesday at an unrelated event about combatting violent crime.
“Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor,” he continued. “He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity. Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by their filings in court.”
“We live in a democracy,” he later added when asked about fears of unrest surrounding Trump’s case. “These kind of matters are adjudicated through the judicial system. The Justice Department will be vigilant to ensure that there are no threats of violence or actual violence.”
When pressed by reporters about his role in the indictment, Garland said it was “completely consistent with the regulations and set forth responsibilities of the Attorney General and the special counsel regulations, and I followed those regulations.”
Garland similarly declined to answer when a reporter asked about why the indictment was the best and appropriate step, reiterating that “all comments on this will have to come in filings in court.”
Trump and his allies have made repeated unfounded claims that the case – which centers around his alleged mishandling of classified documents – is politically motivated.
In a speech Tuesday night after his arraignment, where the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges against him, Trump railed against Smith, calling him a “thug,” a “deranged lunatic” and a “raging and uncontrolled Trump hater.” He also accused Smith of “doing political hit jobs.”
Trump also decried the “horrific violations of my rights by crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice” as “unthinkable.”
“Today, we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in this country’s history,” Trump said Tuesday night as he kicked off the first rally after his second criminal arraignment of his post-presidency, which took place at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“This thing will go down in infamy and Joe Biden will forever be remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country, but perhaps even more importantly, the president who — together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists — tried to destroy American democracy,” Trump said.
In rare public comments on the day the indictment was unsealed last week, Smith emphasized that “we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.”
“Applying those laws, collecting facts, that’s what determines the outcome of an investigation,” he added. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
The charges against Trump include 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, a crime under the Espionage Act, as well as one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, multiple counts of withholding or concealing documents in a federal investigation and a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
