You’d assume that an lawyer common who has presided over the embarrassing debacle of the Hunter Biden investigation would specific contrition, or perhaps just a little anger on the underlings who’ve shamed him, when he’s hauled earlier than a congressional committee to clarify his failures.
However alas, Merrick Garland is simply one other Mr. Magoo.
His division is ablaze however he is aware of nothing.
The nation’s chief regulation enforcement officer has no particular perception into the malfeasance unfolding underneath his nostril.
He’s simply an oblivious bystander, unperturbed by the tyrannical flip the DOJ has taken underneath his management, persecuting his boss’ political enemies and coddling the crooked president’s crooked kinfolk.
Regardless that Garland was once a decide, he makes no judgments in any respect.
He professes to don’t have any view about US Lawyer David Weiss’ farcical five-year “investigation” of the president’s 53-year-old son, Hunter.
“I promised the Senate that I might not intervene,” he instructed the Home Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
“I’ve not intruded or tried to judge that, as a result of that was the promise I made to the Senate.” What an honorable man, preserving his guarantees.
However he’s the ship’s captain. There’s a fireplace within the maintain, the vessel goes down, and he doesn’t even hassle himself to search out out what occurred.
“Have you ever had private contact with anybody at FBI Headquarters in regards to the Hunter Biden investigation?” requested Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La).
Stammering Merrick
For what appeared like an eternity however was actually about seven seconds, Garland appeared down at his tightly clasped arms, slowly turned his head left and proper as if the reply would possibly materialize someplace on the empty desk beneath him, then popped his tongue, stated “ahhhh,” pursed his lips, exhaled and organized the perimeters of his mouth in a downward shrug, earlier than lastly trying up at Johnson with a sheepish expression and stammering: “I don’t actual . . . I don’t . . . ah . . . I don’t recollect the reply to that query however the FBI works for the Justice Division?” a non sequitur delivered in a cascade of upward inflections as if he was the one asking questions, or perhaps channeling a Valley Lady.
He desires us to applaud his pathological incuriosity in regards to the corruption of Weiss’ probe, as uncovered by the 2 valiant IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. The form of skilled, nonpartisan public servants whom Garland professes to assist, they’re the heroes of this sordid story.
They blew up their careers to testify in regards to the slow-walking, the kid-glove remedy out there to no different American, the tip-offs about search warrants, the constraints on investigators, the no-go zones wherever close to the Large Man, the refusal of geolocation searches to find out if Joe actually was within the room, like Hunter claimed, in his shakedown WhatsApp to a Chinese language benefactor, the burying of incriminating proof such because the FD-1023 FBI supply report alleging Hunter and Joe every took a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch, and naturally, Hunter’s notorious laptop computer, which the FBI had authenticated and seized in December 2019, however which remained off-limits to the IRS investigators.
Not his downside, Garland communicated, as he delivered the bravura stonewalling efficiency we’ve come to anticipate from Biden appointees.
Ascribing bias
Talking of which, his favourite line was to level out that Weiss, whom he has elevated to particular counsel regardless of manifest failures, was a “Trump appointee.”
He stated so 9 occasions.
He appears to assume that bias might be ascribed to prosecutors relying on which social gathering appoints them. Presumably he applies that logic to himself, as a Biden appointee.
Normally good folks discover it tedious to say the identical factor 9 occasions in a row, however Garland appeared to get pleasure from it, till the great Liz Cheney-slayer Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) wiped the smirk off his face.
“Mr. Garland, one of many issues you might have executed and repeated over and over and over is to level out that Mr. Weiss was appointed as US lawyer by President Trump, as if that one way or the other inoculates him from criticism by us. Is that actually how this recreation is performed, that if somebody is appointed by a Republican, then they’re speculated to be on the Republican workforce, or in the event that they’re appointed by a Democrat, they’re on the Democrat workforce? You had been appointed by Mr. Biden, weren’t you? Are you on the Democrat workforce?”
Touché. He by no means stated it once more.
The listening to discovered in ineffective vogue, alternating between Republicans laying zingers that went nowhere and obsequious Democrats bloviating about “excessive MAGA Republicans.”
“The Justice Division treats everybody alike” was Garland’s central lie. Any criticism of his biased prosecutors is “harmful,” he stated darkly.
He did enable himself a flash of sizzling indignation in his opening remarks when he drew on his household’s historical past of persecution as Jews in what’s now Belarus. His grandmother survived the Holocaust whereas two of her siblings perished.
“This nation took her in and underneath that safety [and] she was capable of reside with out worry of persecution,” he croaked. “The safety of regulation, the rule of regulation, is the inspiration of our system of presidency.”
But when he thought these tremendous phrases would garner him delicate remedy from the committee, Ukrainian born Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) deftly turned the tables on him.
“You had a really transferring assertion about your grandparents coming right here from Belarus to reside within the nation with out worry of persecution,” she stated.
“I grew up in a really related nation, Ukraine now, and once I got here right here as a teenager, I believed within the worth as an American to not be afraid of my authorities . . . Are you conscious that loads of Individuals are actually afraid of being prosecuted by your division? Are you conscious of that?“
Voters sick and drained
Garland began whining about “fixed assaults on the division,” however she interrupted.
“Not assaults . . . loads of good Individuals from my district got here right here [on Jan. 6] as a result of they’re sick and bored with this authorities not serving them. They got here with strollers and the children, and there was a chaotic scenario as a result of the right safety wasn’t supplied. [And then] FBI brokers confirmed as much as folks’s homes. You have got in my district in my city, FBI telephone numbers throughout [saying] please name [and inform on people].
“Individuals are really afraid. It is a massive downside when individuals are afraid of their very own authorities . . .
“It’s like KGB.”
Does Garland perceive that rogue prosecutors and disproportionately harsh J6 prosecutions are destroying belief within the justice system, as murderers and shoplifters get off straightforward, and a spirit of lawlessness and corruption infects the land?
No. There was not an indication that his conscience was troubled.
