{"id":1628147,"date":"2022-08-31T10:20:31","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T14:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1628147"},"modified":"2022-08-31T10:20:32","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T14:20:32","slug":"ag-merrick-garland-issues-memo-warning-doj-about-talking-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ag-merrick-garland-issues-memo-warning-doj-about-talking-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"AG Merrick Garland Issues Memo Warning DOJ About Talking to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fag-merrick-garland-issues-memo-warning-doj-about-talking-to-congress%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1628147&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Attorney General <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-merrick-garland\">Merrick Garland<\/a> issued a memo to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-department-of-justice\">Department of Justice<\/a> (DOJ) employees reiterating the agency\u2019s policy that prohibits communicating with congressional lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>Garland wrote in a Tuesday <a href=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/FbcXgYxXwAANQqw?format=png&amp;name=900x900\">memo to staff<\/a> that the agency is reminding \u201call Department personnel of our existing policies regarding communications between the Justice Department and Congress,\u201d citing and directing to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/jm\/jm-1-8000-congressional-relations\">Justice Manual provision<\/a> that states \u201ccommunications between the Department and Congress \u2026 will be managed or coordinated by\u201d the department\u2019s Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike the policies regarding communications with the White House, these policies \u2018are designed to protect our criminal and civil law enforcement decisions, and our legal judgments, from partisan or other inappropriate influences, whether real or perceived, direct or indirect,\u2019\u201d Tuesday\u2019s memo added.<\/p>\n<p>In one section of the Justice Manual, it says that\u00a0\u201crepeated requests for public information from the same Member of Congress or staff, or from different Members of Congress or staff concerning the same matter or case, should be promptly reported to OLA. \u00a0If you are unsure if certain information should be released, or whether it is proper to give certain assistance requested, please contact OLA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also Tuesday, Garland <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/mkt_app\/doj-bans-officials-from-all-partisan-political-events-amid-allegations-of-bias_4699181.html\">issued a revised ban<\/a> on DOJ staff, including appointees from engaging in partisan political activity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough longstanding Department policy has permitted non-career appointees to attend partisan political events, e.g., fundraisers and campaign events, in their personal capacities if they participated passively and obtained prior approval, under the new policy, non-career appointees may not participate in any partisan political event in any capacity,\u201d Garland wrote.<\/p>\n<p> Whistleblower Complaints <\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s unclear why Garland decided to remind employees about the policy, it comes on the heels of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-fbi\">FBI<\/a> whistleblowers having provided information to members of Congress\u2014namely Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) as well as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)\u2014regarding bureau investigations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo to Department of Justice (DOJ) employees reiterating the agency\u2019s policy that prohibits communicating with congressional lawmakers. Garland wrote in a Tuesday memo to staff that the agency is reminding \u201call Department personnel of our existing policies regarding communications between the Justice Department and Congress,\u201d citing and directing to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1628147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}