Investigate Them
In the year since the Capitol, and American democracy, was savagely attacked, the beloved institution where I worked during earlier parts of my career, the Department of Justice, has been eerily silent on many events of that day. True, the department has done a terrific job at prosecuting some of the rank-and-file attackers, but thus far it has made no peep about investigations into former President Donald Trump, let alone his coterie of enablers, such as the former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, or his ostensible attorneys, John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani. This investigation into high-level wrongdoing is the greatest test an attorney general could face. And right now, despite what he said in yesterday’s generally good speech, it is worth worrying about whether Merrick Garland is failing that test.
Caveats abound. Perhaps Garland’s critics have to success as a Justice Department lawyer and later, in his two decades serving on our nation’s second-highest court, was never reversed once by the Supreme Court. Criminal investigations are generally secret, and perhaps what is going on is that Garland has proceeded apace, just not publicly. If so, the critics are premature, and Garland is doing exactly what he is supposed to do.
