Elections have consequences. Merrick Garland is Exhibit A.
BIll Barr, the attorney general who functioned as Don the Con’s Tom Hagen, has magically vaporized – and will soon be replaced by a classy guy who actually believes in blind justice and the rule of law.
Indeed, only a classy guy could sit there yesterday, during his Senate confirmation hearing, and patiently entertain an endless string of cartoonish questions from the same traitorous Republicans who gave aid and comfort to the domestic terrorists who sought to overturn the election. Heck, these are the same people who stole his Supreme Court seat five years ago by simply ignoring his nomination.
No matter. He exhibited not a scintilla of annoyance, and he emerged with his dignity intact. Unlike Barr, he’s not a disingenuous toady. This guy is a mensch.
When Lindsey Graham tried to turn back the clock to 2016 and goad him to talk about ex-FBI director James Comey, Garland gently shut him down by saying it would not be a valuable use of time.
When Ted Cruz (no jokes, please) tried to turn back the clock and claim that President Obama had systematically “weaponized” the Justice Department for partisan purposes (has Cruz been in a coma for the last 4 years?), Garland calmly promised that he’ll be the lawyer for all Americans (as all attorney generals are supposed to be) and that he’ll ensure that the laws are “fairly and faithfully enforced.”
When insurrectionist insider Josh Hawley tried to suggest that perhaps Garland supports defunding the police (did Hawley not remember what happened to 140 police officers during the insurrection that he stoked?), Garland almost shrugged: “As you no doubt know, President Biden has said he doesn’t support defunding the police, and neither do I.”
When Charles Grassley brought up Hunter Biden (natch), and asked in so many words whether the fix was in to protect the president’s son from any and all unspecified allegations, Garland calmly stated: “The president made abundantly clear in every public statement before and after my nomination that decisions about investigations and prosecutions will be left to the Justice Department. That was the reason that I was willing to take on this job. So, the answer to your question is: no.”
When Mike Lee suggested that Kristen Clarke, Garland’s choice to run the DOJ’s civil rights division, may have made some anti-Semitic remarks in the past (Lee didn’t specify), Garland, who is Jewish, replied: “You know my views about anti-Semitism. I’m a pretty good judge about what an anti-Semite is.”
Garland also had to spend a fair amount of time calmly schooling Republican senators about the reality of systemic racism in America. (John Kennedy of Louisiana actually asked this question: “When you refer to systemic racism, what is that?”) But all sideshows aside, this was the big message yesterday:
There’s a new sheriff in town – and he’s intent on exposing the right-wing domestic terrorism that metastasized during the MAGA occupation and desecrated democracy on Jan. 6. That’s where the investigation will start. That is not where it will end.
Garland stated: “I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6 – a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government…We begin with the people on the ground and we work our way up to those who were involved and further involved and we will pursue these leads wherever they take us…I intend to make sure that we look more broadly to look at where this is coming from, what other groups there might be that could raise the same problem in the future and that we protect the American people.” (Italics are mine.)
Translation: Go wherever the evidence leads. And if the investigatory road leads to Trump’s henchmen, or Trump himself, or to certain senators in that chamber, so be it. A record 81 million Americans voted last November for a return to the rule of law, and they’re going to get it.
Garland stayed cool as the hours wore on – except for one particular moment, when he spoke of his ancestors: “I come from a family where my grandparents fled anti-Semitism and persecution (in Czarist Russia). This country took us in and protected us. And I feel an obligation to the country to pay back, and this is the highest best use of my set of skills to pay back.”
Public service and the America dream…Perfect together.