We certainly dodged a bullet by not having Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, but in many ways, he proved to be far more dangerous as the head of the Department of Justice. Despite promises of independence, his tenure has seen the Department of Justice become as much, if not more, politicized than it was under the Obama administration with attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.
As PJ Media's Robert Spencer noted on Sunday, there are whispers that Biden wants to let Garland go, and if that happens, it would be a good thing, even if Biden does it for the wrong reasons. Frankly, Republicans should have impeached him already.
In his first year, Garland authorized the FBI to investigate parents who protest school board meetings, falsely alleging a “disturbing trend” of parents threatening or harassing teachers. A whistleblower eventually came forward, revealing an internal email showing that he had lied to Congress when he claimed the FBI wasn’t using counterterrorism tools to monitor parents.
He allowed for the release of Donald Trump’s private tax records to Congress despite Congress having no legitimate claim to access them, and, of course, he authorized the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. Garland’s Department of Justice also threatened states that pass voter integrity laws over bogus allegations of minority voter suppression. Texas also found itself in the sights of Garland’s DOJ for its fetal heartbeat bill.
Related: Attacking the Hur Report Won’t Fix the Democrats’ Problem
When Garland wasn't abusing his power to target Biden’s enemies, he was protecting Biden and his allies. Garland allowed disgraced FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to win back his full pension and declined to launch an investigation into COVID-19 nursing home deaths in New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, protecting the Democrat governors of those states.
Despite everything Garland has done to be Joe Biden's wingman, he's no longer happy with Garland because he authorized the release of the Hur report. The special counsel report may have legally absolved Biden, but it was only because he was deemed too senile to stand trial for the mishandling of classified documents.
Would Biden actually fire him? I don't doubt that if Biden won a second term, Garland would likely be part of the usual second-term turnover, but this is an election year, Biden is behind in the polls, and Garland was a key player in his administration's efforts to prosecute Donald Trump.
He can't afford a major shakeup now, and it would reflect poorly on him and his administration. Biden claimed that Garland would restore independence, and letting him go over the Hur report would make it even more difficult for the administration to assert such independence.
Garland won't be Attorney General much longer, but he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
