Biden administration’s Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to depoliticize the Justice Department: NPR

A day after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, the new president-elect announced his choice to lead the Justice Department.

In a press conference on January 7, 2021, Joe Biden described Merrick Garland as a man who exemplified character and decency. He promised that Garland would be a lawyer for the people, not the president. And Garland said he would help restore the Justice Department’s independence from the White House.

More than three years later, the way Garland drew the line between politics and law has somehow alienated Biden, former President Donald Trump and many of their supporters. The violent Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol and those responsible for it will help define Garland’s tenure in what was likely his last act of sustained public service.

“He’s just the perfect institutionalist,” said Alex Aronson, a former Justice Department lawyer and Democratic Senate aide. “I think he entered his term as attorney general with a sincere intention to uphold institutionalist values.”

But Aronson, now executive director of the advocacy group Court Accountability, said Trump and his followers pose a continuing threat to democracy, and that Biden and Garland are at this historic moment. He said he misunderstood.

“Like a lot of mainstream Democrats and establishment Democrats, he kind of waved a magic wand and tried to bring back the norms of the pre-Trump era, but in light of what happened in the Trump era. That’s not a realistic approach,” Aaronson said. “And that’s not how the norm works.”

Public initiatives

Garland joins a Justice Department that has endured intense criticism from the former president.

During his presidency, Trump fired the FBI director, ridiculed a career civil servant who investigated his campaign’s contacts with Russia, called for investigations of political opponents, and named his acting attorney general as a subordinate who had advanced false claims about election fraud. threatened to replace it.

Law professor Paul Butler said: “For President Biden, the Justice Department’s legitimacy is seen as beyond reproach after President Donald Trump’s attorney general was criticized as biased in Trump’s favor.” It was important to appoint a leader who could do the same.” At Georgetown University, he began prosecuting public corruption cases for the Department of Justice.

Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, said she often joked that Trump-era attorneys general were the president’s “public defender.” That’s not the case under Garland, she added.

“I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the problem with Merrick Garland, that he’s too deliberate, too thoughtful,” Murray said. “Well, he was a judge. That’s what they do. He was put in that role for a specific reason, and he was given a mandate and mandate to make the distinction between public office and the presidency clear. I think he did that.”

Mr. Biden and his team chose Mr. Garland, a respected federal appeals court judge with a 40-year track record, precisely because of his distance from politics. In his early years as attorney general, Garland spent days preparing for oversight hearings by writing his own responses to detailed follow-up “questions for the record” from Congress.

Peter Keisler is a longtime appellate attorney and former deputy attorney general under George W. Bush. He said Garland’s intelligence, judgment and commitment to the public interest make him the perfect person to serve now.

“Both attorneys general will be asked to make very tough decisions on very controversial issues,” Keisler said. “That’s the nature of the job.”

politically controversial events

But the sheer number of legal issues that have landed on Garland’s desk is notable.

Let’s start with the largest federal criminal investigation in history. Nearly 1,500 cases against the mob that stormed the Capitol and extremists who engaged in a seditious conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Later, the Justice Department launched an investigation into President Biden after aides discovered classified documents in his academic office. Garland was appointed special counsel and ultimately concluded not to charge Biden with wrongdoing, citing his age and memory deficiencies.

A separate special counsel inherited from the Trump administration has indicted Biden’s son Hunter on gun and tax crimes.

A third special counsel ultimately pursued two historic indictments against Donald Trump. The first was for allegedly hoarding classified documents at a Florida resort, and the second was for trying to cling to power after losing to Biden in 2020.

These cases against Trump mark the first time a former president has been charged with a federal crime, but conservative courts have continued to narrow and limit the cases against Trump.

Criticized for methodical pace

Neither case against the former president could go to trial before the November election, even though the attorney general previously said the Jan. 6 investigation was “the most urgent investigation in the history of the Department of Justice.” do not have.

The investigation proceeded with public action, primarily by ground officials rather than senior management, until Mr. Garland’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor in November 2022.

His methodical pace drew harsh criticism.

Tim Heafy served as chief investigative adviser to the House Select Committee investigating President Trump’s efforts to cling to power.

Mr Heaphy, a partner at Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, said: “There were several witnesses who had emerged as very important witnesses, or really central figures in our investigation, who had not been interviewed by the time we contacted them. ” he said.

But Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney who has advised two different attorneys general over the years, defended the Justice Department’s approach.

He said prosecutors face a much higher burden of proof than lawmakers.

“The fact that the Department of Justice is working more slowly is important and necessary and not at all surprising,” Rosenberg said.

Keisler, the appellate attorney, agreed, saying that even if no charges had been filed, investigators should have taken the time to look for possible financial ties between militia groups and people in Trump’s inner circle. Ta.

“Once all the work is done, it’s easy to say, “I should have done it sooner, I should have done that,” instead of wasting time pursuing what didn’t work, Keisler says. “But you never know what you will or won’t find unless you do a thorough investigation first.”

Supreme Court calculations

Ultimately, the conservative Supreme Court granted Trump effective immunity from prosecution in July, after waiting months to reconsider the case against him on January 6 of this year.

A conservative supermajority has rejected in its entirety the portions of an indictment accusing President Trump of abusing the Justice Department to advance a bogus election fraud scheme, ensuring that future presidents will not be able to protect the Justice Department and its people. He emphasized how much power he would exercise over the government.

If the election interference case against Trump survives the election, a trial may not be heard until 2026.

Christie Parker prosecuted civil rights cases at the Department of Justice for 19 years. Parker, now special counsel for the bipartisan advocacy group Protect Democracy, said people may be asking too much of the justice system and the Department of Justice.

“You know, we can’t rely on criminal investigations and prosecutions to do more than just hold people accountable for specific violations of law,” Parker said. “We can’t rely on them to deal with larger political issues.”

protection from politics

As for Merrick Garland, his time in the administration may be coming to an end. Does the new Democratic president want to keep him in office, at least for a while, because of potential difficulties in confirming a new attorney general, or because of the massive litigation already underway? No real hint yet as to whether.

He primarily lets his work speak for him and has rarely accepted public speaking as part of his job. But he made an exception this month when he gave a major speech about shielding Justice Department investigations from political interference.

Garland’s voice choked with emotion as he defended the department and its employees.

“Our code is a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. And our code is a promise that this country will not become a country where law enforcement is treated as a political device. This is a promise that we will not tolerate it,” he said, to applause from the standing room audience.

It is now up to voters to decide whether to return former President Trump to the White House and, by extension, what will happen to these basic norms that Garland has embraced.