When President Biden picked Merrick Garland to head the Justice Department last year, he chose a cautious appeals court judge known as a political moderate who can build consensus.
Garland, a former federal prosecutor, will try to restore confidence in the growing and powerful law enforcement agency after Trump’s tumultuous presidency, his supporters said. He would try to convince the public and lawmakers that he was an apolitical attorney general, even as he dealt with some of the nation’s most controversial political issues.
But Monday’s highly unusual court-approved FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club has put Garland at the center of a huge political firestorm. The search, part of a long-running investigation into the possible misuse of presidential documents, drew praise from Democrats who hoped the Justice Department would seriously investigate Trump and anger from conservatives who denounced the search as an abuse of power.
Trump called the court-authorized search “prosecutorial misconduct” and “weaponizing the justice system.” Some of his supporters say the FBI action could galvanize Trump’s base if he runs for president in 2024.
Republican allies on Capitol Hill condemned Garland and vowed to turn things around and investigate the Justice Department. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said the attorney general should resign or be impeached.
Merrick Garland’s goal is to restore the integrity of the Justice Department. His legacy will still be defined by Trump.
The partisan discontent was the opposite of what Garland sought during his 17 months on the job, during which he launched numerous high-profile civil rights investigations and efforts to combat gun trafficking and hate crimes while overseeing the sprawling investigation of Jan 6, 2021, rioting at the US Capitol and the unprecedented effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Garland has repeatedly refused to discuss this investigation or any other investigation underway, whether or not it involves the former president. He has repeatedly promised to follow the facts where they lead and to hold accountable anyone who breaks the law, no matter who that person is.
At press conferences, he avoids reporters’ questions about Trump that inevitably come up. Two of the four reporters allowed to ask questions at a news conference last week on charges brought against police officers in connection with the killing of Breona Taylor chose to ask about the investigations against Trump. Both times Garland refused to answer.
For months, Trump’s critics — especially, but not only, those on the left — have chided Garland for not moving quickly to investigate Trump on many fronts. In recent weeks and months, without fanfare, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington began receiving communications from people in Trump’s inner circle and subpoenaing witnesses to appear before a grand jury, making it clear that Trump’s actions and conversations were became part of the scope of the January 6 probe.
“You’re certainly going to have people say this is the ultimate political act,” Donald B. Ayer, deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, said of the raid. “But that’s just nonsense. … He has a job to do.”
The Justice Department did not comment on whether Garland signed off on the FBI action, and Garland did not discuss it. He made only one public comment Monday about the sentencing of three men convicted on federal charges in connection with the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man who was killed while jogging in his Georgia neighborhood.
“The Department of Justice’s prosecution of this case and the court’s sentences today make clear that hate crimes have no place in our country,” Garland said in a statement. “Protecting civil rights and combating white supremacist violence has been a fundamental goal of the Department of Justice, and one that we will continue to pursue with the urgency it demands.”
What could the Mar-a-Lago search mean for Trump legally?
Christy Parker, a former federal prosecutor and counsel at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, said that while it was inevitable that the response to the search would be politicized, Garland’s silence before and after the search of Trump’s property was critical to building credibility in the process. She said it showed the attorney general did not try to appeal to any group during the investigation and let the investigation run its course.
“It’s important to look at the way it’s done, not just the substance of what’s being done,” Parker said. “And just as important is depoliticizing the department to make sure no one is above the law, and trying to avoid going after the president or someone from the opposite political party.”
But some lawyers questioned why the Justice Department and FBI would conduct such a high-profile search of a former president’s residence for missing documents, even if some of them were classified (sitting presidents have broad powers to declassify documents, further complicating the situation).
Stanley Brandt, a former House attorney who represented some of the defendants and witnesses on Jan. 6, said search warrants don’t always yield any hit or useful information. He called the FBI’s search of Trump’s property a huge escalation in the investigation into documents illegally taken to Mar-a-Lago. If investigators don’t recover material that shows there were serious national implications to the material he potentially kept, Brandt said, it could tarnish the Justice Department’s reputation.
“If they’re trying to recover from the perception that decision-making has been distorted by the Trump era, that’s not going to help them,” Brandt said. “Part of that depends on what happens next.”
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