The warning signs were all there. Attorney General Merrick Garland was going to be a partisan hack, and anyone could have seen that.
During his confirmation hearings, Garland refused to commit to protecting special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the Obama-Biden administration’s spying on the Trump campaign or to release his report to the public.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was surprised by Garland’s unprecedented response, especially considering that Attorney General William Barr had promised to protect then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion during his confirmation hearings.
“When we discussed this over the phone, you told me that your predisposition would be to review the record before making a decision,” Grassley said. “That answer surprised me. It’s not an answer this Committee would have accepted from Barr on Mueller. I think your predisposition, frankly, should be to protect and support the ongoing investigation as much as possible.”
There were other warning signs as well. Garland refused to call Antifa’s attacks on federal buildings domestic terrorism and evaded questions about how he would enforce immigration policy, amongst many other things. It’s obvious in hindsight why Garland was so evasive. Look at how crime has skyrocketed. Look at the border crisis. Garland knew what he was doing when he routinely evaded questions from Senate Republicans during his confirmation hearings—and repeatedly claimed to be unaware of situations cited by Republicans in their questioning. Whether you believed he was ignorant of current events or didn’t want to answer, it was unfathomable that anyone so ignorant or cagey could be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Yet, Merrick Garland was confirmed 70-30, meaning he was confirmed in a bipartisan vote with the help of 20 Republicans.
Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, John Thune of South Dakota, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Garland didn’t need any Republican support to get confirmed, yet 20 ignored the warning signs and gave him their seal of approval—including Chuck Grassley, who was shocked by Garland’s refusal to commit to protecting the Durham investigation.
As I pointed out at the time, Garland’s refusal to commit to protecting the Durham investigation raised significant questions about the Department of Justice being politicized on his watch the way it had been during the Obama-Biden administration. Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder, obstructed dozens of investigations to protect Obama and referred to himself as “the president’s wingman” during a radio interview in 2014. Did they really not see what I saw? How could they not? Yet, they voted to confirm a man who gave them every reason to believe he would be Joe Biden’s wingman, not the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
And that’s precisely what he’s done. He’s sued states that passed election integrity laws but refused to investigate Democrat governors’ deadly COVID-19 nursing home policies. He’s targeted states that protect life and let dangerous protestors illegally assemble outside the homes of Supreme Court justices—even after the failed assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh. He even sicced the FBI on parents who spoke out against transgender policies and CRT during school board meetings. And now his coup de grâce is siccing the FBI on a former president with the hopes of preventing him from running again in 2024.
The warning signs were all there, so there is no excuse for any Republican having voted to confirm Garland last year. It may not have prevented him from being confirmed, but they didn’t have to give him their consent.
