Posted on 06/22/2023 7:04:32 PM PDT by george76
Below is my column in The Hill on Attorney General Merrick Garland at the midpoint of his tenure at the Justice Department. For an Attorney General who said that he wanted to restore the trust of the public in his department, Garland has manifestly failed to achieve his goal. It appears that the Justice Department and FBI are now trusted less than under his predecessor, Bill Barr. A new poll shows that 55 percent of the public view the Trump indictment as “politically motivated” and 56% believe that it constitutes election interference. A similar majority wanted Trump pardoned if convicted.
Here is the column:
Merrick Garland began his tenure as attorney general with the stated intention of restoring faith in the Justice Department and the rule of law. By that standard, Garland has been a failure.
In fact, if anything, the crisis of faith surrounding his department has only deepened on his watch, and he bears some of the blame.
Polls show that half the country distrusts the FBI. A recent poll by Harvard CAPS-Harris found that 70 percent are either very or somewhat concerned about election interference by the FBI and other intelligence agencies. An additional 71 percent agreed that changes post-2016 had not done enough to prevent further interference and that “wide-ranging” reform was still required. Another poll showed 64 percent view the FBI as “politically compromised.”
During the term of his predecessor, Bill Barr, 50 percent of the public viewed the department favorably, and 70 percent had a favorable view of the FBI. The public trust of the department appears to have declined under Garland. At the very least, it has not dramatically improved.
There is variation in these polls, but they show a deep-seated distrust of the Justice Department that continues to taint all of the department’s work.
For example, the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump contains extremely damaging elements, including an audiotape that directly contradicts Trump’s assertions that he declassified all of the documents in his possession. Yet even the Justice Department’s release of an unusually detailed indictment, with pictures designed to sway public opinion, appears to have had little effect. While 48 percent of the public believes that the charges are justified, 47 percent believe the charges are “politically motivated.”
The response to this indictment shows the gravitational pull of public perceptions of the Justice Department. That perception of bias is well earned. Various officials were removed from the Department by career officials for their express bias and misconduct during the Russia-collusion investigation. That investigation was recently found by Special Counsel John Durham to have been launched with the backing of the Clinton campaign and without the minimal evidence ordinarily required by the department.
The Justice Department and the media kept the investigation going for years despite the lack of credible evidence.
When Biden gave the nod to Garland, I thought it was a brilliant move. Garland had been an affable, principled and moderate judge. Many of us criticized the Senate’s refusal to give him a vote after his nomination to the Supreme Court. I now believe that he would have made a great justice for all the reasons he has proven to be a poor attorney general.
He is affable but not influential or effective in changing the department. He is the very symbol for maintaining a status quo that the public rejects.
Garland leads the department with the same judicial temperament and persona. Predecessors such as Barr came to the department as former prosecutors with a clarity of purpose and mission. That would put Barr in conflict with Trump, but he was a hands-on manager who penetrated every level of the department. While some opposed Barr’s priorities, no one doubted who was in control of that department.
Garland’s reputation is more like that of a supervising judge who defers to the views and decisions of his agency. The result has been disastrous for the department. Even FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted that the past scandals demanded fundamental changes in the department’s operations.
Yet Garland allowed the culture to remain unchanged. He remained largely reactive to new scandals like the task force quickly assembled at the request of the teacher’s union and school board officials to investigate parents challenging school boards.
Garland remained largely silent as the FBI cracked down on conservative groups across the country in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. He said nothing as his subordinate prosecutor Michael Sherwin bragged on in a television interview how they sought to unleash “shock and awe” on those who supported the election challenge to ensure that certain “people were afraid to come back to D.C.”
While most of us supported the tough punishment of rioters, the Justice Department was criticized for its draconian treatment of people charged with relatively minor offenses such as trespass and unlawful entry into the Capitol.
The controversies continue to pile up, from the seizure of the phone of a member of Congress to alleged disparate treatment in investigations of pro-life over pro-choice groups. Some of these and other controversies are legitimately debatable; others are not.
Garland could have taken steps to assure the public that there is not a two-tiered system of justice but repeatedly refused to do so. For example, Garland has continued to refuse to appoint a special counsel in the investigation of Hunter Biden. By doing so, Garland has removed the president’s greatest threat in the form of a report that would detail the scope of the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling and foreign contacts.
Garland is now looking at a new inflammatory situation after Special Counsel Jack Smith has leveled 37 charges against Trump while Robert Hur, “the other special counsel” investigating Biden, has largely disappeared from sight.
There is also the notable absence of any decision by Smith on another part of his mandate: crimes associated with Jan. 6th. Some of us have argued that Trump’s controversial speech was constitutionally protected. While Smith was swift to charge on the documents matter, he has not resolved the other part of his mandate even though the Jan. 6th matter has widely investigated by the Justice Department and Congress. The concern is that the Justice Department does not want to undermine the widespread claims in the media and Congress that Trump committed crimes in supporting an “insurrection.”
Garland has also supported the appointment of controversial officials such as Kirsten Clarke and Rachael Rollins, deepening the distrust of conservatives.
Time and again, Garland could have made decisions to seek to assure the public with more moderate and transparent decisions. He has repeatedly failed to do so.
Garland is not solely at fault. Biden took office promising to be a unifier and a moderate. He immediately adopted far left policies and fueled divisions by denouncing millions of “MAGA Republicans” and his political opponents as “semi-fascist” extremists.
Garland repeatedly pledged that political considerations would hold no sway with him as attorney general. He has certainly refrained from Biden’s style of divisive rhetoric. However, he has done little prospectively to assure the public that the department is pursuing cases without political bias. He continues to repeat the mantra of “trust us, we’re the government,” long after that trust has been lost with many citizens.
The failure of Merrick Garland is becoming more and more evident by the day. The public continues to distrust the Department, and his assurances of fair dealing have been overwhelmingly rejected by Republicans and independents.
It is hard to dislike Merrick Garland as a man. But as an attorney general, there is little to like about his last two years.
11. Excellent starting summary of how brainless puppet Biden has made/coalesced in appointing or nominating the most incompetent, destructive set of government leaders and their stooges in American history.
He is also a pathological liar and his appointees/aides have only served to cover this up, as well as his family’s crimInal enterprises, and their threats to national security.
Garland is the worst Attorney General in AMERICAN history. His legacy will be as the first fascist AG in our history and his aides are the Good Germans of the 1930s and 40s.
His commitment to justice is that of Beria’s was to law and order, against crimes and people, real or ideologically imagined, mostly imagined.
I have worked with various sections of DOJ over the years, including some of the finest people I’ve ever met, and will always consider them the best of the best, while those AGs under Clinton, Obama, and now Biden I consider the worst of the worst.
I lost a college teammate/friend in Vietnam, have known those who suffered terrible torture by the Communists and Nazis, those who were attacked here in the US for their law enforcement work (or who were threatened as I was), or who spent many years working to protect America from all types of enemies domestic and foreign, including the corrupt news media, the destruction of our once great educational system, our religious foundations of our society, and especially our family unity.
Garland and his subversive minions are as much as an “existential threat” to the very survival of America as are Russian, Red Chinese, No. Korean and Iranian nuclear and CB weapons.
By undermining our wonderful but still growing legal system, Garland and his Gang are destroying our country from within more effectively than our outside enemies.
This is “The Pity and the Shame” of the betrayal of America that really got started under the Clinton Criminal Family, revved up under the traitorous Obama, and continued to grow under the Biden Crime and Treason Family with the help of their “Good Americans”, the Deep Swamp Family.
None dare call this “Silent Treason” but I will.
Garland is a TOTAL SUCCESS to all the Other EVIL DEMOCRATS!! His Rabbi needs to give him an EXORCISM!!
Bill Barr is ALSO PURE EVIL!
I find it very easy to dislike the commie weasel and he's NOT failing. He's just got a different purpose than what Turley thinks an AG should have.
“It is hard to dislike Merrick Garland as a man.”
Not a problem for me! But “dislike” is too weak a word.
If only he were in a position to, you know...do something about it. Or maybe he's just a corrupt liar and has no plans to do anything but continue with the criminal behavior at the Bu.
“To think that Garland was close to being a Supreme Court Justice.”
Turtle came through for us on that.
The "fundamental changes" include making sure no one can ever accuse the FBI of doing bad things without fear of prison or worse.
or “utter success”, depends on whose side your on
One of the members of my chess club said we just don't understand Biden because we don't understand how Irishmen talk!
I dislike him as a man. A man that has carried his bitterness for not being confirmed to a seat on SCOTUS to a point where he has single handedly corrupted the Department of Justice for political retribution. It's hard not to dislike the man.
A more skillful version of Comey.
Sounds good!
The initial tone of this piece is too soft. I stopped reading it.
The coffee klatch at Temple Sinai in DC has more influence than McCarthy and McConnell. Lloyd Austin serves the coffee and bagels.
Barr is just as bad as Garland. Mr. Turley, Garland is about as well suited to the Supreme Court as the Joker (as played by Heath Ledger).
Barr had/has a connection to the swamp dwellers, and a certain amount of charm with the “chosen few” who assemble in the hallowed halls.
To excuse Garlands’s faults and applaud them as favorable attributes is to show that Turley is out of touch with the majority of America.
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