Senate Republicans go off the deep end during Merrick Garland confirmation hearing
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans failed to observe that President Biden’s nominee for Attorney General, Merrick Garland, is a thoughtful, respected, fundamentally decent man, in stark contrast to his immediate predecessor, Bill Barr. Rather they’ve apparently decided the best way to deal with Trump’s despicable politicization of the Department of Justice to serve his personal interests, rather than the country’s, is to erase Bill Barr’s tenure as Attorney General from the history books.
Republicans, starting with Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, almost comically declared it is essential that DOJ render impartial justice, without acknowledging DOJ abuses under Barr; instead, they hearken back to Democrat Eric Holder’s supposed sins.
However, they did acknowledge the responses Barr gave at his confirmation hearing prior to becoming Attorney General, holding them up as the paragon of forthrightness. Grassley and Tom Cotton said Barr gave the Committee firm assurance he would let Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation run its course and wonder why Garland can’t do the same with respect to the Durham investigation, after Garland said he had to talk with Durham first.
These Senators “forget” that Barr totally lied about letting Mueller proceed apace; as Attorney General, Barr seemingly cut Mueller’s investigation short, then deliberately misled the public on what Mueller’s Report said, when Barr gave his distorted summary of the report and delayed the full report’s release, so all the public had was Barr’s “interpretation” of it.
They made no mention of Barr’s storm troopers clearing protestors, secret security forces whisking people off the streets; no mention of Barr jumping into the Flynn and Stone cases or his DOJ attempting to intervene to help defend Trump in a civil case brought by a woman who’d credibly accused him of rape. GOP hypocrisy is still alive and well, but Garland is breath of fresh air.
