Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back forcefully on “false” and “extremely dangerous” narratives he said are being spread about the Department of Justice in an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, saying he and the department “will not be intimidated.”

The hearing came as House GOP lawmakers threaten to hold Garland in contempt for withholding records they’ve subpoenaed from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents following his vice presidency, including audio recordings of Hur’s interview.

“Certain members of this Committee and the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means of obtaining — for no legitimate purpose — sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations,” Garland said in his opening statements. “This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the Justice Department’s work.”

Garland’s appearance before the committee became contentious from the start as Rep. Matt Gaetz kicked off questioning for Republicans. He peppered Garland with a combination of hypotheticals that the attorney general declined to engage with while trying to tie the Justice Department to state-level investigations independent from the department.

Gaetz pressed Garland about the Justice Department’s interactions with the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose investigation into former President Donald Trump resulted in a jury convicting him on 34 felony counts last week, and Fulton County, Georgia’s District Attorney Fani Willis, the prosecutor who brought a sprawling racketeering case against Trump.

The Florida Republican asked Garland whether the Justice Department will provide any documents and correspondence between the department and their offices. Garland responded that both those offices are independent from the Justice Department and said any requests for correspondence from Congress would be referred to the Office of Legislative Affairs.

Gaetz then hit back arguing that by refusing to immediately hand over any such documents, the Justice Department is only fomenting more conspiracy theories.

During the back-and-forth, Garland repeated that the Justice Department had no involvement in Bragg’s investigation. In his opening remarks, Garland said that “conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself.”

“The case in New York is brought by the Manhattan district attorney independently on his own volition, as [his] own determination of what was, what he believed was a violation of state law,” Garland said to Gaetz.

Garland also rebuked “baseless and extremely dangerous falsehoods … being spread about the FBI’s law enforcement operations,” he said, an apparent reference to conspiracy theories spread by Trump and his allies that Biden authorized the use of deadly force in the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat, asked Garland what the impact is on the department when Trump and Republicans baselessly claim that Biden sought to assassinate Trump during the search of Mar-a-Lago. As part of the Aug. 8, 2022, operation at Mar-a-Lago, FBI agents were given a standard policy document that limited the use of deadly force, according to the unsealed memo.

“This is dangerous. It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents,” Garland said. “The allegation is false, as the FBI has explained, the document that’s being discussed is our standard use of force protocol, which is a limitation on the use of force, and which is routinely part of the package for search warrants, and was part of the package for the search of President Biden’s home as well.”

Garland grew visibly emotional as he was asked by Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean about his concerns that institutions like the Justice Department are under attack in the U.S.

“Attacks on the rule of law tear down those confidences in the basic, fundamental element of our democracy that all people will be treated equal,” Garland said. “And I intend to continue to protect the rule of law, to protect the … career employees of my department to make sure they can continue to go about their job, which is to do the right thing every day and not to be distracted by outside influences, political, or otherwise.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican, pressed Garland over his appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel, leveling various suggestions that Smith was a political hit man out to “get” Trump.

“I appointed somebody who was not a political appointee, somebody who was independent, non partisan, with a with a record of career experience as a prosecutor. That seemed to me the perfect resume,” Garland said.

Garland also answered directly when Jordan pressed whether he regretted picking Smith to oversee the investigations into Trump.

“No, I do not regret picking him,” Garland said.

Garland defended the Justice Department’s recent decision to urge Biden to assert executive privilege over the remaining records from Hur’s investigation, arguing that handing over the materials could have the impact of jeopardizing future high-profile investigations.

“I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations,” Garland said. “I will not be intimidated. And the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”

It was inevitable that Republicans would go after Dolly Parton. Under the leadership of Donald “Make America Great Again” Trump, Republicans have grown to loathe most everything they used to hold in high regard. Forget patriotism — nowadays, Trump rallies are replete with claims that the United States is a “s__thole.” The Super Bowl is now derided as an “election interference psyop.” Once-beloved Budweiser beer has become a hate object. The same conservative forces who used to pretend they were defending American icons like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head from imaginary “cancelation” are now mostly in the business of canceling anything and everything that Americans might enjoy. 

“There’s Nothing Loving About Dolly Parton’s False Gospel,” the wet blankets at The Federalist recently declared. The much-derided essay from Ericka Andersen castigates the beloved singer-songwriter for “condoning immoral sexual behavior,” by which Andersen means being gay or queer. Andersen doesn’t directly come out and claim Parton is lying about being a Christian, but gets close with terms like “secularized spiritual leader” and “false gospel.” 

The faux-theology is a paper-thin cover for what is really a political attack. It’s not just that Andersen resents that Parton offers innocuous statements of love and acceptance of LGBTQ people, sentiments shared by most Americans. As with the attacks on the NFL, Taylor Swift, and the “Barbie” movie, it’s about encouraging paranoia in the Republican base. The message, from Trump down through the right-wing media, is that white conservative Christians are under attack from every corner of society. As New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie explained on Bluesky, this allows conservatives to “see themselves as involved in revolutionary action that justifies anything under the sun.” Including lying, committing crimes, and, as we saw on Jan. 6, violence. 

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The invocation of religious language isn’t surprising. This tactic is borrowed directly from the world of fundamentalist Christianity. For decades, far-right Christian pastors have used a similar strategy to alienate their congregations from the outside world, leaving pastors with total control of their flock’s lives. Believers are routinely threatened with hell for even thinking about whatever pop culture is trendy. 

In the 80s, of course, this was the notorious “Satanic panic,” where everything from daycare centers to popular rock albums to Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games was said to be a gateway directly to demonic possession. In the 90s, fundamentalists declared that Pokemon “teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft.” For the past couple of decades, Christian fundamentalists have been freaking out over the “Harry Potter” series, which only seems to have quieted a bit as the author JK Rowling has so loudly championed the far-right opposition to trans rights. Lately, the biggest target for hyperventilating accusations of demonic possession is, of course, Taylor Swift, as well as most other big pop stars. If it might create a chance for young people to bond with those outside of the church, it gets demonized. 

Separating people from any connection to the outside world is an effective tool for control, which is why everyone from abusive husbands to cult leaders uses it. As the GOP morphs into the cult of Donald Trump, then, it’s not surprising that they’ve also grown fond of telling their followers to shun any interests outside of Trump rallies and MAGA media. After all, even a casual conversation about football with a dreaded liberal might be a reminder that Democrats are normal people and not the “evil” and “sick” people who need eradication, as Trump regularly claims. 

The need to keep his followers in a constant state of fear of the outside world goes a long way to explaining why Trump has bizarre diatribes about sharks — yes, sharks — in his speeches. It’s hard for those who aren’t fluent in MAGA-ese to get what Trump is talking about when he said he saw “some guys justifying” shark attacks by saying, “they were not hungry, but they misunderstood.” Obviously, this didn’t happen. But the moral of the story, for those unfortunate souls who know Trump’s pattern well enough to translate, is that the “crazy” world outside of MAGA is so evil that they’ll let sharks eat you. So it’s best to stay far away from the “they” of Trump’s endless fear-the-world rants. 

Parton’s “love they neighbor” view is downright banal to most people, but it does run directly against the “hate and fear your neighbor” message of MAGA. It’s especially unsettling to Republicans, as Andersen explicitly writes, because it’s a direct allusion to what was recently a common Christian message: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” As New York Times writer Elizabeth Spiers argued on Bluesky, the Trump base now openly embraces “a bastardized version of Christianity that’s reverse engineered from their biases,” rejecting compassion in favor of “permission to judge people they don’t like and punish them for deviations from conservative norms.”

Russell Moore, who was once a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention but got pushed out for, among other things, being anti-racist, agrees. He has spoken publicly about how Christian ministers can no longer preach about the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus famously blessed the meek, the peacemakers, and the merciful. If ministers try to teach this scripture, Moore said congregants will revolt, calling it “weak.” The relentless cruelty of Trumpism is their true faith. 

Andersen’s attack on Parton is part of a larger trend where the GOP is becoming an arm of the once-fringe Christian nationalist movement. As Paul Rosenberg has explained at Salon, these are folks who believe their rigid version of Christianity must “exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.” To justify stripping freedom of religion away and imposing theocracy on Americans, Christian nationalists, including Trump, claim to be acting in self-defense. They make false accusations that they are somehow “canceled” by the “woke mob,” and thus the only way to restore their “rights” is to take rights away from everyone else.

Andersen employs this dishonest tactic by claiming “the culture is on a constant witch hunt for those who would call homosexuality sinful.” Never mind that LGBTQ people have suffered imprisonment, violence, and discrimination. Ignore the fact that, if conservatives had their way, queer people would lose their right to marry, would be denied health care, be fired from their jobs, and be put in jail for having consensual sex. She wants readers to believe the real victims are homophobes, because people accurately call them bigots. And that all those terrible things they want to do to LGBTQ are justified, because they feel “witch hunted” by having people disagree with them.

Journalist Katherine Stewart and Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined Dahlia Lithwick on her Amicus podcast last week, and they pointed out that this Christian nationalist attitude leads directly to violence. Whether they’re explicitly complaining about “demons” or using sanitized political language like “woke,” the MAGA argument remains the same: They are beset on all sides by evil forces they believe are out to get them. Therefore, they are entitled to do whatever it takes to “protect” themselves. It’s all a phantasm, of course. The freedom to be a loud-mouthed bigot remains untouched in the U.S., protected as always by the First Amendment. But it’s a useful lie to justify a fascistic crackdown on America, and so a lie that MAGA is embracing. Even if doing so means attacking an icon like Dolly Parton. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and his allies on Thursday clung to false claims about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as the nation marked the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection.

Reacting to President Joe Biden, who blamed him for the deadly event, Trump issued statements repeating his assertions that the voting was rigged. Those claims have been thoroughly debunked.

In a speech marking the anniversary, Biden said Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election fueled the riot. Biden said the election was the most scrutinized in U.S. history, and that the riot was an un-American attempt to derail democracy incited by a politician who couldn’t accept the people’s will.

A look at the claims:

TRUMP, on the Biden administration: ““That’s what you get when you have a rigged Election.”

TRUMP: “In actuality, the Big Lie was the Election itself.”

THE FACTS: To be clear, no widespread corruption was found and no election was stolen from Trump.

Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump had when he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, which he repeatedly described as a “landslide.” (Trump ended up with 304 electoral votes because two electors defected.) Biden achieved victory by prevailing in key battleground states.

Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, found no evidence of widespread election fraud. Trump’s allegations of voting fraud also have been dismissed by a succession of judges and refuted by state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department.

No case has established irregularities of a scale that would have changed the outcome.

An Associated Press review last month of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the presidential election.

Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states.

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TRUMP: “Does anybody really think that Biden beat Obama with the Black population in select Swing State cities, but nowhere else? That he would … somehow miraculously receive the most votes in American history with no coattails?”

THE FACTS: It’s not unrealistic that Biden won 81 million votes in an election where turnout exceeded the mark set by the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama. Voter participation in the Nov. 3, 2020, election, in fact, was the highest in more than a century, according to the Census Bureau.

The tallied votes accounted for over 66% of the eligible voting-age population in the U.S. That’s the highest since 1900, before all women were allowed to vote, according to the United States Elections Project.

The sheer number of votes also set records, although that’s a less remarkable milestone given the country’s growing population. Biden’s more than 81 million votes was the highest number for a presidential candidate in history. Trump received more than 74 million — the highest total for a losing candidate.

Biden’s total surpasses the 2008 record of 69.5 million votes cast for Obama. Biden was also on that ticket as Obama’s running mate.

Election experts and partisans point to various factors accounting for the rise in civic participation. Some note that higher turnout was expected after many states expanded the time and the ways voters could cast ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, while others cite the extraordinarily high passions Trump provoked — both for and against — in an election that amounted to a referendum on his leadership.

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TRUMP: “Biden … used my name today to try to further divide America.”

THE FACTS: Biden did not cite Trump by name in the speech. Instead, he referred to him throughout as the “former president.”

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REP. MATT GAETZ: January 6 “may very well have been a fed-surrection. … I do not believe that there would have been the same level of criminal acuity but for the involvement of the federal government.” — news conference with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in Washington that focused on the Capitol riot.

GAETZ: “What if those Capitol police officers are victims … what if they are victims of an orchestrated effort by the FBI or other federal law enforcement to increase the criminal acuity of that day?”

THE FACTS: The suggestion by Gaetz, a Florida Republican, as well as other conservatives in recent weeks that the FBI may have orchestrated the Jan. 6 riot is baseless.

Gaetz appeared to be referring to an article in Revolver News, a fringe news site founded by a former speechwriter for Trump, that argued because many “unindicted co-conspirators” listed in the Jan. 6 federal charging documents were not charged, they could actually be undercover FBI agents or federal informants.

That theory doesn’t hold up and there’s no evidence the unnamed conspirators are FBI agents or informants. Legal experts and federal case rulings in fact have made clear that government agents and informants cannot be described under the law as conspirators to a crime.

In truth the rioters are just who they said they were — Trump supporters.

During testimony last year before Congress, FBI Director Christopher Wray was asked whether there was any reason to believe the insurrection was organized by “fake Trump protesters.”

“We have not seen evidence of that,” said Wray, who was appointed by Trump.

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Klepper reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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