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Senior Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday about the nation’s fentanyl crisis, the flow of drugs and migrants over the U.S.-Mexico border and the Justice Department’s stance on mandatory minimum sentences.
The moments of drama came during the panel’s first oversight hearing of the Justice Department in the 118th Congress.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) challenged Garland over a Justice Department memo recommending that prosecutors not seek mandatory minimum sentences in some drug cases.
Cornyn pointed out that drug-related deaths in the United States have become so frequent that the daily death toll is equivalent to a passenger jet crashing and killing everyone on board every day.
“I have been just astonished at the lack of sense of urgency to deal with this issue,” he said, blaming the flow of drugs across the border on the Biden administration’s law enforcement and asylum policies.