Jennifer Rubin: Merrick Garland is the wrong man for the job. [View all]

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“Afraid of being accused of partisanship, he chooses not to do his job.”—Jennifer Rubin in her column “Merrick Garland is the wrong man for the job.”

Opinion | Merrick Garland is the wrong man for the job
He is failing to hold those who have disgraced the Justice Department accountable.
washingtonpost.com
9:07 AM · Jun 23, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/merrick-garland-is-wrong-man-job/

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Attorneys who did their jobs professionally would have nothing to worry about in a top-to-bottom review of the department’s conduct. Investigating wrongdoing, rooting out unethical behavior and getting to the bottom of the politicization of the department are central to restoring the Justice Department’s reputation. In allowing miscreants to escape accountability (unless Horowitz snares them in his inquiries), Garland has effectively told his department that there are no consequences for unethical or even illegal conduct.

Moreover, in refusing to examine what occurred in the last administration, he is not protecting career attorneys; he is protecting former attorney general William P. Barr and his political hacks who intervened in prosecutions, looked the other way when a whistleblower revealed the disgraced former president’s attempt to extort Ukraine, played along with phony accusations of election fraud and likely misrepresented facts in the census case that was before the Supreme Court. In a sense, Garland is also sheltering former president Donald Trump from investigation, since the only way to understand the extent of his effort to subvert the election is to examine in minute detail his interactions with the Justice Department.

Garland does the department and the legal profession no favors by allowing former Justice Department political appointees to escape consequences for their conduct (e.g., professional sanctions, prosecution for obstruction of justice). To the contrary, he is encouraging future political appointees to do the bidding of the White House rather than upholding the independence of the department.

It is perfectly appropriate for Garland to direct Horowitz to conduct thorough investigations of wrongdoing over the past four years. However, playing whack-a-mole — waiting for each scandal to surface and then reacting — will not reform the department. It will not remove from the department lawyers who behaved inappropriately or who condoned such behavior.

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