Merrick Garland says farewell to the Justice Department with praise, encouragement and an urgent warning for staffers
CNN
After a tumultuous tenure clouded by two failed criminal prosecutions against the incoming president, Attorney General Merrick Garland is leaving the Justice Department the same way he came in: trying to defend it against political attacks.
After a tumultuous tenure clouded by two failed criminal prosecutions against the incoming president, Attorney General Merrick Garland is leaving the Justice Department the same way he came in: trying to defend it against political attacks. Garland, a once-beloved appellate judge whose nomination to the Supreme Court was thwarted by a Republican Senate, took the reins of the department in 2021. He began in the role by pledging, as he would several times over the next four years, that he would use his office to restore the integrity of the Justice Department after Donald Trump’s first term. And while Garland is credited with overseeing major antitrust, civil rights and national security cases, his oversight of the Justice Department was also marked by high-profile political investigations, probes from Capitol Hill and accusations of “weaponization” against perceived enemies. “I know that, over the years, some have wrongly criticized you, saying that you have allowed politics to influence your decision-making. That criticism often came from people with political views opposite from one another, each making the exact opposite points about the same set of facts,” Garland said in a farewell address to staff Thursday afternoon. “But the story that has been told by some outside of this building about what has happened inside of it is wrong. You have worked to pursue justice – not politics,” Garland added. “That is the truth. And nothing can change it.” But Garland won’t be able to escape the shadow of the Trump era. For instance, one of the attendees Thursday was Judge Tanya Chutkan – the federal judge who oversaw the Trump election subversion case in Washington, DC.
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