Merrick Garland exits with his record under scrutiny and the Justice Department bracing for upheaval
WASHINGTON (AP) — During hearings on Merrick Garland's nomination to be President Joe Biden's attorney general, the longtime federal appeals court judge told senators in 2021 that he hoped to “turn down the volume” on public discourse about the Justice Department and return to the days when the agency was not the “center of partisan disagreement.”
It didn’t go as planned.
Garland came in with a mission to calm the waters and restore the department's reputation for independence after four turbulent years under Republican President Donald Trump, who fired one attorney general and feuded with another. Now, the soft-spoken Garland, who was denied a seat on the Supreme Court by the Republican-led Senate, is leaving this month with the department under siege and his own legacy in question.
Those on the right are incensed over the department’s effort to hold Trump criminally responsible for his failed effort to overturn his 2020 election loss and have accused prosecutors of going too easy on Biden's son Hunter. Democrats have claimed Garland failed to pursue Trump aggressively enough immediately after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and have criticized the Garland-appointed special counsel, who, they thought, took gratuitous swipes at Biden.
Some senior Biden aides have said privately that Garland was the wrong choice for the job and they believe he bent too far trying to show impartiality.
Garland's defenders say that despite the political pressures, he stood firm in his commitment to independence and fairness.
“The story that has been told by some outside of this building about what has happened inside of it is wrong,” Garland told employees Thursday during an emotional farewell address inside the Justice Department’s Great Hall. “You have worked to pursue justice — not politics. That is the truth and nothing can change it.”
From judge to the Justice Department
Garland was the chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, when he was nominated by President Barack Obama for the high court in March 2016.
A Justice Department lawyer who worked under five attorneys general, Garland had burnished his reputation as a hard-charging prosecutor supervising the case against Timothy McVeigh for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Garland has called his work on the investigation “the most important thing” he has ever done.
On civil rights matters, the Justice Department under Garland undertook a dozen investigations into law enforcement agencies, uncovering widespread misconduct — work that had been curtailed under Trump's first term. The department was also aggressive in its antitrust enforcement, bringing cases against Google, Apple and others.