From Frank Foer of The Atlantic:
As Garland spoke about his approach to his job, he asked an aide to pass him a copy of a tattered blue book that was sitting on a side table, Principles of Federal Prosecution, ... He kept extolling the neutrality of the department, how it should never favor friends or penalize foes, how it should only bring cases that persuade juries and survive appeals. “What I’m saying isn’t novel,” he said. “It’s all in here.”
... I asked him if he’d had anything to do with its publication. “I helped edit it,” he said, and then wistfully recalled his mentors in the department who oversaw its production. It struck me that Garland isn’t just by-the-book. In some profound sense, he is the book.
This unbending fidelity to rules and norms has often looked impotent in the face of the democratic emergency that is Donald Trump. In his quest to avoid the taint of politics, Garland allowed certain Trump-era policies to remain in place. He ordered the DOJ to continue defending Trump against a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a writer who accused him of raping her. He has permitted the Special Prosecutor John Durham’s investigation of the origins of Russiagate to persist, despite a raft of Democrats clamoring for him to shut it down. (I should note here that Durham mentioned my reporting on Trump and Russia in court filings, and his lawyers asked witnesses about it in his prosecution of a Clinton campaign lawyer, whom a jury acquitted.) Those flash points created an impression of passivity; instead of rushing to confront the legacy of Trumpism, he seemed to be meekly deferring to it...
I came to appreciate that the qualities that strike Garland’s critics as liabilities would make him uniquely suited to overseeing Trump’s prosecution. The fact that he is strangely out of step with the times—that he is one of the few Americans in public life who don’t channel or perform political anger—equips him to craft the strongest, most fair-minded case, a case that a neutral observer would regard as legitimate.
United States v. Donald Trump would be about more than punishing crimes—whether inciting an insurrection, scheming to undermine an election, or absconding with classified documents. An indictment would be a signal to Trump, as well as to would-be imitators, that no one is above the law. This is the principle that has animated Garland’s career, which began as the Justice Department was attempting to reassert its independence, and legitimacy, after the ugly meddling of the Nixon years. If Garland has at times seemed daunted by the historic nature of the moment, that is at least in part because he appreciates how closely his next move will be studied, and the role it will play in heading off—or not—the next catastrophe...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/merrick-garland-donald-trump-investigation-indictment/671683/
As for
John Durham, he's been tough on our side during the whole dustup over the validity of the Steele Dossier, and has pursued Clinton and the Fusion GPS stuff. But he has not been seen as corrupt, even as the Right think they have weaponized him. So after their toughest lawyer with a solid criminal prosecution history has fallen short of indicting Democrats, the Right's whole argument that Democrats have been trying to undo Trump's election has lost its factual basis and legal validity. It's been the basis of their fighting against the Democrats' two impeachments, with Senate Repubs' refusal to vote him guilty, as well.
Repubs, venal and corrupt as they are, have denied any criminality, and seen the Democrats' investigations of them as mere political setups to keep them out of majority rule. They're right about keeping them out of majority rule, but they set up themselves with their criminal machinations to foment a coup. They think our side is so evil that they'll try it again no matter how many Garland's DOJ convicts.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-biden-cabinet-b48026fe9d00fe9b046ba8087bec1262
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was appointed in October by then-Attorney General William Barr as a special counsel to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, will remain in that capacity, the senior Justice Department official said, but is expected to resign from his other position as the U.S. attorney in Connecticut.
Biden hasn't removed him. I'm don't think AG appointed Special Counsel even can be removed without the current AG appearing political, so that's probably the stance Garland takes and Biden respects.
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