Attorney General Merrick Garland fires back at House GOP contempt threat: 'I will not be intimidated'

• Attorney General Merrick Garland hit back at the House Republicans threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress.
• "I will not be intimidated," Garland said in his opening testimony at the start of a hearing before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee.
• Garland also pushed back on the wave of conspiracy theories surrounding the historic criminal conviction of former President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday hit back at House Republicans threatening to hold him in contempt, calling their efforts part of a wave of "unprecedented and unfounded" attacks against the Department of Justice.

"I will not be intimidated," Garland said in his opening remarks at the start of a hearing before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee.

"The Justice Department will not be intimidated," he said. "We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy."

He also pushed back on the swell of conspiracy theories surrounding Thursday's historic criminal conviction of former President Donald Trump, including the false claim that the guilty verdict by a New York state jury "was somehow controlled by the Justice Department."

"That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself," Garland said.

His unusually direct rebuke came as House Republicans are moving toward a contempt vote over the DOJ's refusal to share audiotapes of President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated the president's handling of classified documents.

Hur found that Biden "willfully" retained classified materials after he served as vice president under Barack Obama. But the special counsel declined to bring criminal charges