This past week AG Merrick Garland testified before the judicial committee of the US House of Representatives. Garland provocatively and erroneously declared that he was not the president’s attorney nor was he the Congress’s prosecutor. Garland sanctimoniously declared that he and his DoJ served only the American people. My understanding of our U.S. Constitution is that it is very clear that AG Garland, like DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and all other officers of the cabinet, are appointed by the president and by extension ‘shall take care’ to faithfully execute our laws.

President Biden from the earliest days of his administration has tried to create a ruse by declaring a split between the sphere of the AG and department of justice’s duty to enforce the law and Biden’s duty to be in charge of executing the laws. Biden conveniently declares that he knows nothing about Garland’s sphere of decision-making.  Biden seems to extol a sly idealism that would dispel, for instance, AG Eric Holder’s statement that he was President Obama’s “wing man” or the way AG John Mitchel acted as Nixon’s lawyerly agent during the Watergate conundrums. Biden’s ruse sounds righteous but allows him cover, especially when his own behavior or that of his family is investigated at the request of Congress.

Garland’s second declaration about not being Congress’s prosecutor is another sly ruse. Biden’s frequent worshipful comments about “our democracy” or “our democratic values” overlooks, as Garland does, the fact that America is a representative democracy or republic. So, serious requests to the DoJ or AG for investigation of any American by Congress are in fact requests from the duly elected representatives of the people.

Is Merrick Garland still so bitter and angry at Senator Mitch McConnell and Republicans for withholding his shot at being a SCOTUS justice that he has blind spots about his sacred responsibilities about American justice?

Image: US Senate