Attorney General Merrick Garland is apparently unavailable to comment on the agreement the Department of Justice reached with Hunter Biden on Tuesday because Garland is out of the country on a “surprise” visit to the Hague.
Garland made an unannounced stop at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday to meet with its top prosecutor, Karim Khan, but the ICC provided no details about the meeting. The United States is not a party to the ICC, but the meeting represents another step in a gradual warming of relations between the two.
🎥 The Attorney General of the United States, The Honorable Merrick B. Garland, visited the #ICC today@TheJusticeDept #BuildingSupport pic.twitter.com/IvmgAE7YtF
— Int’l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) June 19, 2023
The meeting occurred just a day before the DOJ reached a deal with Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, on charges related to tax evasion and gun crimes. He agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay federal taxes in 2017 and 2018, and is entering a pretrial diversion agreement for illegally possessing a gun in 2017.
Garland has not publicly commented on the charges and it is unclear if he plans to do so. (RELATED: Trump Slams ‘Election Interference’ Deal Hunter Biden Struck With Feds)
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. sanctioned top officials at the ICC after the court accused American troops of committing war crimes. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the court a “broken and corrupt institution.”
The Biden administration lifted those sanctions, and has applauded the ICC’s work prosecuting war crimes committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.