Jan. 6 committee members have been complaining about the ridiculously long delay in the DOJ charging Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for contempt of Congress for refusing to respond to their subpoena. Moreover, Merrick Garland and his DOJ seemingly have not moved at all to charge former President Trump and his many associates and enablers for their role in the Jan 6 insurrection and attempts to overturn the presidential election. Unless this changes very soon, I think Biden made a huge mistake in appointing Garland as Attorney General.
Past AGs were often friends, colleagues, or even relatives of the President – at the very least people who the President knew would stand with them on important issues: Bobby Kennedy for JFK, Clark for Johnson, Mitchell for Nixon, Meese for Reagan, Ashcroft for Bush, Holden for Obama, and Barr for Trump. In appointing Garland, Biden was probably reacting to the many awful ways Barr served as a mouthpiece for Trump instead of a keeper of the law. Plus, Biden probably wanted to stick it in Republican faces that they refused to consider Garland for the Supreme Court.
Well, Garland’s views and temperament may have made him a great Supreme Court Justice but his cautious approach to Trump and allies make him a lousy pick for AG. As is very clear in the current makeup of the Court and in the battles over nominees, interpretation of the law is very ideological. There are many very qualified candidates who would have made great AGs – how about Laurence Tribe, for example — who would rightly have Trump and his many henchmen charged by now!
Time is running out. The Manhattan DA is not prosecuting. Garland dithers. The Jan 6 committee won’t survive the midterms. The full Mueller Report still hasn’t been published. Is everyone a complete wuss or do they just not have the goods that will stand up in court?
I think Biden has been a big disappointment. He needs to know how to take on these people. Like Biden, Garland appears to be too much of a wuss. You need to be much tougher with these people or they are going to run all over the democrats. They do not seem to have what it takes in today’s washington and I say this with much disappointment.
I wouldn’t give Biden too much credit or blame for Garland. I believe the choice came from a higher paygrade that likes to have Trump around as a distraction. They don’t need to worry about dumping bad news on Fridays when they have Trump around.
Biden and and Garland are examples of incompetant people. They did all their work to end up with nothing. Trump re-elected, his January 6 rioters pardoned by the man who caused the insurrection is a sure sign of basically working with no foresight on the future. This is what incompetant people do, rise to their level of incompetence unable to really do a job they are hired for.