Senate Republicans demanded answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland about a recent Biden appointee’s role in the Justice Department, given her “bias” against special counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the Russia-Gate hoax.
Susan Hennessy, a former NSA attorney who was appointed to the DOJ in May, defended the crony investigation into former president Donald Trump’s campaign and repeatedly blasted Durham for investigating whether it was lawful.
She has “expressed partisan comments about previous and current investigations … raising concerns that she is conflicted and should be recused from such investigations,” Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., wrote in a letter to Garland.
Grassley and Johnson cited several of Hennessy’s past comments, including a December 2020 now-deleted tweet in which she claimed Durham’s investigation was “partisan silliness.”
She also said in September 2020 that the “Durham investigation presents the opportunity for bad actors to make a lot of mischief.”
Hennessy pushed the debunked Russia-Gate hoax several times.
“We can say without exaggeration that if Donald Trump was not currently president of the United States, he would be under indictment or he would be imminently under indictment,” she told CNN in December 2018.
She also defended crony FBI lawyer Peter Strzok after he testified before Congress in July 2018, claiming that House Republicans “cannot even conceive of the possibility someone could place duty and institutional integrity over base political and personal interests.”
Hennessy’s “bias against Durham’s inquiry presents a clear conflict that makes it impossible for her to be objective,” the Republican senators wrote.
They asked Garland to specify what Hennessy’s role in the DOJ will be and demanded that she recuse herself from any job regarding Durham’s investigation.
“Hennessey’s partisan comments show a clear political bias that undercuts her ability to impartially work on some matters … including the Durham inquiry,” they wrote.
