Republican strategist Scott Jennings sent CNN panelists scrambling Monday night after he asked if Attorney General Merrick Garland should be fired over “corruption” at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
President Joe Biden announced he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, in a statement released by the White House Sunday night, alleging that Hunter had been “singled out” due to being the president’s son. Jennings, who earlier cited Biden’s comments when issuing the pardon, questioned if Garland should remain attorney general.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jennings asked. “Do you all think that Merrick Garland should be fired because of this corruption at the DOJ?”
“Again, I don’t think there’s corruption at the DOJ,” panelist Leigh McGowan replied. “I think the concern is the future DOJ is going to be corrupted.”
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“Do you think there’s corruption there?” Jennings pressed the panel. “You think this was a politicized witch hunt, but the attorney general should be held accountable, no?”
“These charges were trumped up because his name is Hunter Biden,” Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York snapped, with Jennings responding, “But wouldn’t that … wouldn’t you, if you were the president, believe the attorney general?”
Bowman responded by turning to former prosecutor Elliot Williams, calling him the “legal expert at the desk.”
“The question was, how legitimate are the charges? It is unlawful conduct. We can all agree to that. He was convicted — duly convicted,” Williams said. “However, I have a hard time seeing how that gun charge would have been brought were he not Hunter Biden. Just look at, just look at the data and look at the numbers.”
“Now two things can be true at the same time, that it is not likely that an individual would have been charged were it not a high profile case, and it’s still unlawful conduct that is worthy of a pardon,” Williams continued. “So there’s a lot going on here.”
A jury in Delaware convicted Hunter Biden in June on three felony gun charges in connection with the 2018 purchase of a Colt .38-caliber revolver. The president’s son also entered a guilty plea on federal tax charges in September in a federal court in California.
“Let’s say he let’s say he would not have been prosecuted if he wasn’t Hunter Biden for that specific charge,” former Republican Rep. Scott Taylor asked. “Why wasn’t — why wasn’t he just pardoned for that? Then why did the pardon go —” he continued before being interrupted by McGowan and Bowman, causing the panel to erupt in debate.
“The Trump Administration is going to comb through every aspect of Hunter Biden’s life,” Bowman claimed after a back-and-forth, adding, “And they’re going to attack the Biden name, by extension, attack the Democratic Party to keep themselves and others like them in power in perpetuity.”
Williams finally got a response in, saying Bowman would not like the point he was about to make.
“It’s the Richard Nixon point, which is that there is uncharged conduct that could still be investigated, that because of the fact that the Justice Department is still looking at,” Williams said, before the panel began to debate once more.
Bowman complained that Trump had been “pardoned by the Supreme Court,” prompting CNN host Abby Phillip to correct him.
“Or you could say, by the American — by the American people,” Phillip said, referencing Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 election.
Biden has received widespread criticism for the sweeping pardon of Hunter Biden.
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