Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t done any favors for his reputation or for that of the Justice Department he runs. Sure, Democrats couldn’t be happier after the FBI’s recent raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Garland has fully complied with the Demo mission against Trump as a political force, apparently by any means necessary.

Garland once gave the impression of a respectable jurist, even if ideologically left of center. But his 2016 nomination to the Supreme Court by Barack Obama was blocked by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who believed that Obama’s successor — either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump — should make the appointment, given that their presidential campaigns were already in full swing. Because McConnell stood firm, and because Trump won, we now have conservative Neil Gorsuch on the bench rather than Garland.

Whether Garland feels that being appointed the nation’s top cop by his friend Joe Biden soothes the sting of that whole episode is hard to say, but now it seems that Garland’s primary role is as the Biden administration’s big thug. Garland appears to be acting as nothing more than a hatchet man for the president, using the power of the Justice Department to push Biden’s agenda and persecute his political enemies.

Remember last year when Garland went after concerned parents for protesting against ridiculous woke policies at school board meetings? Or earlier this year, when Garland refused to go after Hunter Biden and his alleged influence peddling? This may have been at the behest of the Big Guy, who didn’t want an independent inquiry poking into family business. A special counsel can indeed be a nuisance for a sitting president, but if there’s nothing to worry about, then why not appoint one and put the matter to bed? Unless of course, there really is something to worry about, which would explain why Garland seems to be protecting the Bidens.

And then there’s January 6. The public call has come down from on high that Trump must not be allowed to run in 2024. Making him culpable for January 6 appears to be the best way to fully tarnish his image if he does decide to run again.

Congressional Democrats have done their part to keep the circus alive with their prime-time soap opera of unsubstantiated allegations, coached witnesses, and breathless speculation of what caused the riot at the Capitol. But make no mistake: The Justice Department is doing the heavy lifting on this one. Garland’s approval of the Mar-a-Lago raid was the latest step in building a case against Trump. We have yet to learn the details behind that raid, as Garland and his DOJ have not been forthcoming about what the FBI was seeking. He has, however, allowed a lot of anonymous sources to fill the airwaves with nonsensical speculation, including that Trump was hiding nuclear secrets, which are now apparently more important than they were during the previous 18 months they’ve been sitting at his resort.

The standard Justice line is that releasing any information about the raid jeopardizes the larger investigation. “It’s garbage to say that that information couldn’t be redacted so that the remainder of the affidavit that is so important to establishing probable cause is something that we can see,” Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said earlier this week.

It now appears that U.S. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart has called for at least a redacted version of the search warrant affidavit to be made public next week. We’ll have to see what transpires there.

Garland had the chance to quash the speculation and rumors about the Trump investigation, but he never took it. He has yet to explain what the true purpose of the raid was, or how it fits into the larger case against Trump, whatever that case may be. There is a need for some level of secrecy, but this is a former president of the United States, and a likely future presidential candidate. Rule of Law must be respected, and prosecutors must tread carefully.

Is Garland truly clueless about the inherent danger of one political party weaponizing the Department of Justice to investigate the opposing political party? Or is he simply Joe Biden’s hatchet man? Whatever the answer, Garland is failing miserably in his role as our nation’s attorney general.