Garland and CBS Peddle a Big Lie
The attorney general’s protests and crocodile tears couldn’t hide his department’s two-tiered justice.
It’s a good thing Merrick Garland never got that lifetime appointment as a justice on the Supreme Court. Perhaps some of the two-tiered justice Garland is meting out as attorney general for Joe Biden’s Social Justice Department is retribution for being denied that seat. Or perhaps he’s just proving to be unworthy of authority.
In any case, the AG sat for a fawning interview with Scott Pelley on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and he said things that would have made an honest man blush.
Pelley set up the interview by casting Garland as practically an innocent bystander caught between two warring factions while his department oversees investigations of both former President Donald Trump and Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Garland, mused Pelley, is just a “70-year-old former prosecutor and former judge with a long history as a moderate” stuck in a tough situation. He spent a good bit of the interview helping Garland assert that he’s not beholden in any way to Biden. Barely even knows the guy, in fact.
Garland began with a familiar assertion about two-tiered justice. “We do not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats,” he insisted. “We don’t have one rule for foes and another for friends. We don’t have one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, for the rich or for the poor, or based on ethnicity. We have only one rule, and that one rule [is that we] follow the facts and the law, and we reach the decisions required by the Constitution, and we protect civil liberties.”
What a steaming pile that is, and we’ll explain why in a moment.
The remarkable thing is that Garland keeps saying it. He told Congress the same lie just two weeks ago — almost verbatim, in fact, which tells us only that he’s memorized his talking point.
Garland then explained at length how he is just an innocent bystander, letting special prosecutors Jack Smith and David Weiss run their respective investigations virtually without oversight. As if two partisan hacks need a third partisan hack to tell them what to do in order for it to be partisan hackery.
The AG conveniently forgot to mention that he authorized the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
While fighting back tears, Garland explained that he has dedicated his life to the rule of law because two of his ancestors were murdered in the Holocaust and others among his family were saved by moving to the United States, where “we protect each other” from political violence.
Considering deaths in the Holocaust is indeed still moving, even 80 years later. But we are not persuaded that Garland has lived up to his stated intention, and that’s exactly why his comments denying two-tiered justice are a lie and his emotion reeks of crocodile tears.
Pelley eventually got there, in a way. “President-elect Biden picked Garland for attorney general [dramatic pause for video] on the same day the Capitol was attacked.”
The January 6 riot was disgraceful, and we’ve said as much. Anyone who rioted and attacked police ought to face justice. But that is not what has happened.
“We’ve arrested and brought charges against more than 1,100 people,” Garland said. “There are more to come.” That much is true. Many spent time in solitary confinement. Many were punished, even if they weren’t there that day, to the furthest extent of the law.
Well, except for Ray Epps, who mysteriously got a slight wrist slap.
Pelley wasn’t interested in real journalism, though. He didn’t mention Epps. Neither did he mention Mark Houck, the Catholic father of seven whose home was raided by the FBI over the crime of being pro-life on a public sidewalk and was eventually acquitted. Pelley didn’t ask about the other Catholics targeted by the FBI for the crime of being pro-life — including a group that boasts Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member. He didn’t bring up Douglass Mackey, the guy the DOJ prosecuted for posting a funny meme about voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Garland’s DOJ has been ruthless against people on one side of the political aisle.
Not so much for the other side. Firebombers and vandals of pro-life clinics, Black Lives Matter rioters who destroyed numerous American cities, angry protesters outside the homes of Supreme Court justices — these leftists face nothing remotely approaching accountability, much less justice from Garland’s jackboots. The only exception came when a man plotted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Even Garland couldn’t ignore that.
“We protect each other,” Garland practically sobbed. That he uttered such a hypocritical lie in the context of emoting about the Holocaust is even more reprehensible.