With a few words late on a Friday in 2021, President Biden sent Justice Department leadership scrambling. The president told reporters that federal prosecutors should indict Stephen K. Bannon, a former aide to President Donald Trump who was refusing congressional demands to testify about events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Garland’s public and private brushoff of Biden was a chance to put in practice the promise he made on taking office: to run a law enforcement agency insulated from political interference. But in the two years since, the politics around the Justice Department have become only more treacherous for Garland, a former federal judge and Supreme Court nominee. His seemingly hands-off approach to some of the department’s trickiest investigations has drawn praise but also some criticism.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff , a Democrat on the committee, said Garland is doing what he should be doing, consistent with the rule of law. “Republicans are never going to be satisfied because they are not looking at the facts,” Schiff said in an interview. “They are looking to try to get a political advantage.”
“The attorney general looks at these cases as a nonpolitical, rule-of-law situation. And he can be criticized for that and praised for that, both at the same time,” said former senator Doug Jones , who was also in the running to be Biden’s attorney general and thinks Garland is effectively leading the department. “He is exactly the person who they should have thought they would be getting. He is doing exactly what those who know Merrick Garland well had expected.
Not long before sides appeared in court to try to finalize the deal, two IRS whistleblowers testified to Congress that Weiss had slow-walked the investigation and seemed unsure whether he could bring charges against the younger Biden outside of Delaware. Both Weiss and Garland pushed back on those claims, saying Weiss had all the power to bring charges that he needed.
The president and his attorney general rarely appear together publicly. Biden has said that while he communicates with Garland about law enforcement policies, including gun control, prosecuting hate crimes or trying to protect reproductive rights, he avoids bringing up any specific cases, including those relating to his own family or to Trump.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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