©  Mattie Neretin

Attorney General Merrick Garland fiercely defended the Department of Justice (DOJ) against GOP claims of bias in his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee since Republicans took control in January.

Garland faced particularly sharp questioning over his department’s probe into Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and a now-withdrawn FBI memo that warned of “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology.”

“Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate,” Garland said. “As the president himself has said, and I reaffirm here today: I am not the president’s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor.”

And in response to questions about potential religious discrimination within the DOJ: “The idea that someone with my family background would discriminate against any religion is so outrageous, so absurd.”

Garland earlier discussed his family’s history fleeing religious persecution in Eastern Europe ahead of the Holocaust.

Zoom in: As The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch noted, “The Judiciary Committee is one of three panels engaged in an impeachment inquiry of President Biden and is also home to a subcommittee dedicated to probing the ‘weaponization’ of the federal government.”

Read her full report on the hearing here.

Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Amee LaTour, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here.

• A fourth plant — in Tuscaloosa, Ala. — joined the United Auto Workers‘ strike on Wednesday. The strike will continue to expand if progress isn’t made in contract negotiations by Friday, the union said.
  
  

• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he’ll hold up any government funding bill that includes money for Ukraine. 
  
  

• Georgia prosecutors named attorney Lin Wood as a witness in the case against former President Trump and 18 others. Wood says he hasn’t turned on Trump and is simply responding to a subpoena.

©  AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite/Mike Roemer, File

The Senate voted 49-48 on Wednesday against ending debate on a motion to suspend the rules to overcome a Republican’s funding package objection.

• Senate Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the motion to suspend the rules, and in turn 67 senators would have needed to get on board to actually pass it.
  
  
• The vote Wednesday comes after Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) blocked the addition of two appropriations bills to a measure funding military construction and more last week.

What can Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) do now? “Either proceed to a narrower bill funding only military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs — which passed the House in July — or negotiate with Johnson,” The Hill’s Alexander Bolton wrote.  

Read more on the jam in the Senate here.

Welcome to a new section from The Hill! Each week we’ll feature brief responses from relevant individuals to a question on our minds.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this week staff for the chamber’s Sergeant-at-Arms would no longer enforce a dress code on the Senate floor. Republicans, in particular, have decried the change.

We dug around for different perspectives on the question: Does the Senate dress code matter? Why or why not? Here’s what some senators have said on the topic: 

📣 “If you can’t depend on the Leader of the United States Senate to uphold the tradition and decorum of the Senate, who can you count on?” – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the longest-serving current senator, told The Hill’s Evening Report.

📣 “If I had my way, we would have summer casual for men so we didn’t have to have the air conditioning so crazy low and spend so much money keeping this place cold.” – Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) (Huffington Post)

📣 “I think there is a certain dignity that we should be maintaining in the Senate, and to do away with the dress code, to me, debases the institution.” – Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who also joked she might show up in a bikini (NBC News)

📣 “I think we should all want to be more comfortable. And now we have that option.” But also: “Aren’t there more important things we should be talking about rather than if I dress like a slob?” – Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) (The Associated Press)

📣 “A lot of working-class people across this country respect this building. They’re frustrated by it, but they respect it and I think the dress code should reflect that.” – Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) (The New York Times)

📣 “If they care about decorum, they should worry a lot more about the ex-president they are supporting and his total lack of decorum.” – Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said of Republicans (Huffington Post)

Related: C-SPAN advertises branded hoodie after Senate adjusts dress code

The Federal Open Market Committee announced it’s keeping interest rates at the current range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent, while saying another rate increase is expected this year.

• The Hill’s Sylvan Lane explains the Fed is “attempting to snuff out inflation with higher interest rates without raising borrowing costs enough to slow the economy into a recession.”
  
  
• “Rate increases can take more than a year to show their full effect, which makes Fed officials wary of hiking too much, too soon,” Lane explained.

The current interest rate is a 22-year high. And while inflation has risen the past two months, that was “largely due to energy prices beyond the Fed’s control.” More here.

Schumer teed up votes on three military nominations, the first one-off votes the Senate leader has called for amid Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) hold on approving Pentagon nominees in batches.

• Tuberville has maintained the hold since February over his opposition to recent Defense Department abortion policy changes.
  
  
• The Senate can still vote on nominees one by one, a process that’d be very time-consuming for the hundreds of currently stalled promotions. 

The Hill’s Al Weaver reported earlier that Tuberville had planned to force a vote to confirm Gen. Eric Smith as commandant for the Marine Corps. Smith is one of the picks included in Schumer’s one-off votes. Read more.

©  Adek Berry and Willy Kurniawan; Pool Photo via AP

India warned citizens to be wary of “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate-crimes” in Canada as the two countries spar over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s allegation that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh activist near Vancouver in June. India’s External Ministry refuted the allegation.

The White House will soon announce the creation of an office focused on gun violence prevention, something advocates and Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for. Read more here.

Preliminary data from the American Library Association suggest a record number of book challenges in schools and public libraries this year. A greater share of the challenges took place in public libraries in 2023 (49 percent) than in 2022 (16 percent).

“Democrats keep winning special elections in battleground states” — Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and civil litigator, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy. (Read here)

“The cost of doing business under Biden” — Gene Marks, founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm. He frequently appears on CNBC, Fox Business and MSNBC. 

 (Read here)

7 days until the next GOP presidential primary debate.

10 days until the government funding deadline.

Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are scheduled to meet at the White House. Zelensky is also set to meet with some lawmakers.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute holds its 46th Annual Awards Gala, at which Biden is scheduled to speak.

You’re all caught up! Stay with TheHill.com for the latest and recommend this newsletter to others: TheHill.com/Evening. See you tomorrow.