GARLAND WARNS OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM

Merrick Garland, pictured, President Joe Biden’s attorney general nominee, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday he would make the investigation of the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol a top priority, and said he feared the incident was “not necessarily a one-off.”

“We are facing a more dangerous period than we faced in Oklahoma City,” said Garland, who led the prosecution of the worst domestic attack in the U.S., the truck bombing of the federal building there in 1995.

“If confirmed, I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government,” he said.

The Senate is widely expected to confirm Garland, a federal appellate judge and former prosecutor.

Some of the more than 200 people arrested in the siege were associated with groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, underscoring rising concern about future violence from right-wing extremists.

Republicans, for their part, pressed Garland on whether he had discussed the department’s investigation into Biden’s son Hunter with the White House.

“The president has made abundantly clear in every public statement before and after my nomination that decisions about investigations and prosecutions will be left in the Justice Department,” Garland said.

“So the answer to your question is no.”