Garland must go

There are three principal problems with Garland as AG that I hope even people who defend his individual decisions can now recognize as obvious. First: He has a judicial temperament, not a prosecutorial one. He acts like a judge, not an advocate for the people or the issues, as lawyers do. When he was appointed, his supporters touted him as the US Attorney who brought Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, to justice. But by the time Biden named him as AG, he wasn’t that guy anymore. Instead, he was the guy who spent 13 years as judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And so we have an AG who always seems afraid of being “overturned” by a higher court. We can see this in his approach to Texas’s “Operation Lone Star,” where instead of desperately trying to stop Texas Governor Greg Abbott from breaking the law and hurting people, Garland cautiously avoids a showdown at the Supreme Court over whether murder-barriers are constitutional. We see this in the post-Dobbs abortion environment, where Garland meekly accepts that states can criminalize women and pregnant people seeking healthcare and control over their own bodies, instead of making each red state fight for every single inch they take away in lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.

The second problem is that Garland is an institutionalist, more committed to the reputation of the DOJ (and to his own reputation) than the pursuit of justice itself. Garland acts like the DOJ and “justice” are the same thing, when they’re clearly not. He’s simply unwilling to get his hands, or the DOJ’s hands, dirty, even when justice requires it. We see that in his general approach to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which was to go after the idiots and white supremacists who carried out the attack instead of the Republicans in political office who organized the attack and tried to overthrow the government. And we see it in his over-reliance on appointing “special prosecutors” to do his job for him. Garland is so desperate to keep the DOJ above the political fray that having an “R” next to your name might as well be a cloak of invisibility.

And that leads to Garland’s last and most critical flaw: He’s so desperate to appear “apolitical” that he makes disgustingly political decisions every time it looks like Fox News might become angry with him. We saw this most acutely with the Hunter Biden “investigation.” Republicans have conducted a years-long harassment campaign against Hunter, a private citizen who has never held a government position, to take a pound of political flesh out of his dad. Instead of putting an end to it, as he should have, Garland allowed the investigation to continue, so it didn’t look like he was playing favorites with his boss’s son. But Garland didn’t even have the decency to “both sides” the problem and start an investigation into Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump—two presidential family members who did in fact hold government positions– over their possible violations of the Hatch Act. Why? Because that would also look “political.” Under Garland, Biden’s children can be investigated, so as not to appear political, but Trump’s children can’t be investigated, so as not to appear political. It is maddening.

[...]

Say what you will about former attorney general and Confederate mouth-breather Jeff Sessions, he at least quit and got out the way when it became clear that he was not doing what the administration needed him to do.

[...]

Biden is also worried about appearing “political” (even though he is literally a politician) when it comes to the DOJ. Even when Garland basically used the DOJ’s vaunted independence to release a report that would have gotten any other prosecutor drummed out of office.

[...]

Garland was always a pro-cop moderate institutionalist nominated by Barack Obama to replace Antonin Scalia in a bid to appease Mitch McConnell and get Republican votes. The fact that he failed to do that did not transform him into a fighter. He was never for a second the kind of no-nonsense prosecutor needed to hold Republicans accountable and defend democracy.

[...]

One way or another, Garland is just eight months away from starting to write his best-selling self-help book: Under the Desk: How to Get Others to Do Your Job.

  Elie Mystal @ The Nation

And may I add, Garland is exhibit A in why presidents shouldn't use important governmental offices as consolation prizes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.