Jennifer Rubin: Merrick Garland is the wrong man for the job.

[The Magistrate]

26. It Is Unfortunate, Ma'am

That Mr. Garland has done two things which certainly oughtn't have been done. They can be fixed, and perhaps will be, but that they have been done does suggest the man's priorities do not match the circumstances.

There is no adequate excuse for continuing to argue that the United States should be the defendant, not Donald Trump, when Donald Trump is being sued for defamation of a woman he certainly raped, who had the temerity to say he did. None whatever. Trump ought to have had to defend that defamation suit all on his lonesome --- there is no serious argument his statements were part of his official duties.

There is no adequate excuse for withholding the Barr memo the judge says ought to be released. It was not a memo of legal advice but of political advice. It was not advice on whether there were grounds to do something, but advice on what excuse to use for executing a course of action previously decided on, and justifying that excuse.

I am aware of the 'institutionalist' arguments for the course Mr. Garland has taken in these matters. I reject it, in both cases.

Utterly.