Dem
51
GOP
49
AG Merrick Garland will soon be called on to make the most momentous decision any AG in American history has ever had to make: Whether to indict a former president for trying to overturn a presidential election he lost. It will make the indictment of Jefferson Davis for treason look like a ticket for jaywalking. (Davis was imprisoned prior to his trial and released when Andrew Johnson pardoned all the people who took part in the insurrection. Davis was never even tried.) It is likely that special prosecutor Jack Smith will make recommendations after he has researched the case, but in the end, it will be Garland's call. The cheese stands alone.
What kind of a man is Garland? He is not who he seems to be. He is very conscious of his public image and crafts it with care. Politico reporters spoke to about 20 people who have known Garland, some since high school, and put together an in-depth profile of him in advance of the firestorm that will hit when he makes the decision.
Perhaps surprisingly, Garland does not shun the limelight and never has. He is just cautious about how he appears when in it. In high school, he played the lead in J.B., a modernized, Pulitzer Prize-winning play retelling the Book of Job. He also was the lead in every other play he tried out for. People who seek out and revel in very public roles starting as a teenager are typically not bookish introverts.
He went to both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he stood out among a sea of overachievers. He wrote for The Crimson. He supported women's rights before that became trendy. Famous constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recently said of Garland: "I regarded him then as one of the smartest students I ever had, and he was clearly then very thoughtful and had a global sense of the issues that he had encountered."
After law school, Garland clerked on the Second Circuit and later for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan before becoming a special assistant to then-AG Ben Civiletti during the Carter administration. After Carter lost in 1980, Garland worked for a top D.C. law firm for 8 years until he became a prosecutor, working as an assistant U.S. attorney. In 1993 he was appointed deputy assistant AG, where he led the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which destroyed the building and killed 168 people. In 1995, Bill Clinton appointed him to the D.C. Court of Appeals where he remained until 2021. He thus has worked as a prosecutor or a judge for almost his entire adult life.
One person who knows Garland well said: "He's a person of D.C. He knows this stuff and how it works..." He is known to be very exacting and hands-on. While most judges let their clerks do the research and write their opinions, Garland did this all himself. When on a case, he read all the relevant laws and court decisions himself. He also wrote his own opinions, a rarity among appeals judges. Some people have criticized Garland for moving too slowly. However, until he handed the case over to Smith, he was just being his methodical self, turning over every rock and reading everything ever written that might relate to the case. He is the tortoise, not the hare.
The situation he is now in is unprecedented. Yes, Jack Smith will hand him a report, but ultimately it will be his call, not Smith's. As a judge, he tried to understand the law and determine if the defendant had violated it. That was relatively straightforward. Now the law, the facts, the politics, the public relations, and the likely reaction all come together in an unprecedented way. Garland has no guidelines here. Smith can collect all the facts and summarize them for Garland, but the Select Committee has already done that. In the end, it's Garland's call and he knows the entire world as well as history will judge him for it.
On the job, he is the ultimate professional. When the Politico reporters asked his former clerks about "Garland, the man," the best they could come up with were: "I don't know that he had hobbies," "He drinks a lot of coffee," and "I don't even know if he likes movies." Given this background and the microscope he will be under when he makes his toughest decision, you can count on all the t's being crossed and all the i's being dotted. Some people aren't going to like the decision, but the best they are going to be able to come up with is: "Trump is a criminal and should go to prison" or "Trump is not a criminal and should not go to prison." Garland might be impeached as a result of his decision, but his reasoning will be unimpeachable. (V)