The Patriot Post® · AG Garland Decries Attacks on DOJ

Poor, poor, pitiful Merrick Garland. Everyone’s always picking on him. But that’s because he’s not so much an attorney general as a political hatchet man.

Take, for example, his zealous protection of the Biden-Hur interview tape. If special prosecutor Robert Hur declined to prosecute Joe Biden for having “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” then the American people deserve to know precisely why.

Yes, Hur told us in his devastating 345-page report that “no criminal charges are warranted,” primarily because a jury empaneled in Washington, DC, would never convict “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” but does anyone else see the extraordinary fault in that logic? That sympathetic people in friendly districts should be immune from criminal prosecution because of the unlikelihood of conviction?

If that’s the case, then how can Democrats ever be held accountable in the rigged town of DC, which in 2020 voted 92.1% for Joe Biden and just 5.4% for Donald Trump?

Again, if the argument that saves Biden from prosecution or even removal from office is his enfeebled state, then we should be able to weigh the evidence of enfeeblement. And this brings us back to Attorney General Garland’s repeated stonewalling of congressional oversight, primarily in the form of his refusal to release the actual audio recording of Hur’s interview with Biden.

Yes, yes, Garland has repeatedly told us he’s already released the transcript of the recording. But does anyone really think that transcript paints a complete picture of Biden’s cognitive state?

Accordingly, the Republican-controlled House voted yesterday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for this repeated refusal. As the AP reports, “The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members. Only one Republican — Rep. David Joyce of Ohio — voted against it.”

We wonder: What would it have taken to get Joyce’s vote, given that Garland is the most corrupt and contemptuous “wingman” we’ve seen since Obama yes-man Eric Holder?

Next up may be a vote on a condition called “inherent contempt,” which House Republicans are attempting to organize and which, if successful, would require the House’s sergeant-at-arms to arrest Garland.

Yes, please.

Garland wasn’t too happy about these developments or about being the third-ever AG to be held in contempt of Congress. Late yesterday, he said as much: “It is deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon. Today’s vote disregards the constitutional separation of powers, the Justice Department’s need to protect its investigations, and the substantial amount of information we have provided to the Committees.”

A partisan weapon? Is this guy for real?

Garland whines about “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself.” But as our Nate Jackson replied, the AG has it backward: His DOJ is undermining public trust. We’re just pointing it out.

As columnist Mollie Hemingway observes, “Threatening Americans that they better stop criticizing the corrupt DOJ should probably take care of the DOJ’s image problem with the American people.”

This complaint of victimization is now officially a pattern, given Garland’s Tuesday op-ed in The Washington Post, in which he decried the “escalation of attacks” and the “threats to defund particular department investigations” and the “conspiracy theories” and the “falsehoods.”

“We will not be intimidated by these attacks,” wrote Garland. “But it is absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long guided the Justice Department’s work.”

No, Merrick, what’s absurd and dangerous is your own weaponization of the Department of Justice and the feeling that this engenders among half of the American people that we have a two-tiered justice system. As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson writes:

There’s no law in America against spreading “conspiracy theories” — just ask the entire corporate media that spent years spreading outlandish conspiracy theories about how Trump was a Russian agent. What’s more, many Americans now sincerely believe (with good reason) that in light of the ongoing lawfare against Trump, the judicial process itself is indeed compromised and undeserving of public trust. If these Americans are spreading what Garland thinks are “conspiracy theories” for the purpose of persuading their countrymen that the Justice Department is untrustworthy, that is their right as Americans.

Leftists such as Garland are like jihadists, both in their ideological zeal and in their disdain for everything except sheer power. Which is why they continually get the best of Republicans. So, enough of the Queensberry Rules. It’s time for the GOP to start dropping the gloves when the Democrats stonewall like Garland is doing. Otherwise, what’s to prevent the next administration official from doing the same thing when he gets hauled before Congress?

As for Garland’s thin skin, he should get out of the kitchen if he can’t stand the partisan heat. Either that or start behaving more like an attorney general and less like Luca Brasi.

As Davidson concludes, “The real danger here is an attorney general who thinks he’s above criticism, and who feels comfortable issuing public threats that we’d better cut it out — or else.”