Garland Demands an End to 'Attacks' on the DOJ

The Quote of the Day comes to us from none other than Ginger Grant of "Gilligan's Island".

"None proclaim their innocence so loudly as the guilty." I don't know if that fits, but it's from a movie I was in.

Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding oversight of the Department of Justice. A good time may have been had by some, but Garland was definitely not one of those people as GOP committee members grilled him solidly. You can catch some of the highlights here.

No doubt still smarting from actually being held accountable for a change and likely trying not to think of the turn his career would take during Donald Trump's second term, Garland published a snarling op-ed in the Washington Post, stating that the DOJ was under attack and that the alleged hostilities need to come to a screeching halt, posthaste.

Garland led off the piece titled, “Merrick Garland: Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end,” with an account of a bomb threat that had been phoned into an FBI field office. As civilized people, I think that we can all agree that civilized people who are dedicated to the preservation of the republic do not make bomb threats or engage in acts of violence. 

But Garland was just getting warmed up. He went on to list the various ways his department was coming under attack. Those include:

• Threats to defund certain investigations, in particular, an investigation into Trump.
• What Garland calls “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself. Those include false claims that a case brought by a local district attorney and resolved by a jury verdict in a state trial was somehow controlled by the Justice Department.” In this case, the Trump "hush money" verdict.
• “Dangerous falsehoods about the FBI’s law enforcement operations that increase the risks faced by our agents.”
• The "bullying and intimidation" of career public servants by "repeatedly singling them out.”
• False claims that the DOJ politicizes its work to influence election outcomes.

And then there was this. See if you can read it without snorting, giggling, or clenching your teeth.

The Justice Department makes decisions about criminal investigations based only on the facts and the law. We do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from, or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less.

 We do this not only because of the principles that have long guided our work but also because we know that our democracy cannot survive without a justice system that ensures the equal protection of law for all its citizens.

Tell that to Mark Houck.

Tell that to the FBI employee targeted for his political beliefs.

Tell that to the disabled 75-year-old woman, who was recently sentenced for her role in an abortion protest. I'm sure we all sleep much more soundly because a senior citizen in a wheelchair is going to self-report for incarceration.

Tell that to Steve Baker.

Tell that to Ken Paxton.

Tell it to your whistleblowers.

Tell that to the Catholics. True, the FBI was cleared of malicious intent, but the DOJ cleared it.

Tell that to Moms for Liberty and parents who protested at school board meetings.

Hell, tell it to Trump.

Garland's rant may find a warm reception with WaPo or NYT readers or whoever is left watching the MSM. The people who are not impressed or convinced are growing in number every day. Garland knows that. And cries of victimhood aren't going to change that, no matter how loud or indignant they may be.