"Merrick Garland is Getting a Bum Rap"

[soldierant]

Those are not my words, but the words of Harry Litman, whose article for Substack I will be quoting from, and who, with Michael Popok, is one of two attorneys who are features by Meidas Touch. Sine Ben Meiselas, the eldest brother, is a lawyer himself, I take that to imply that he respects the judgments of both. and has good reason to do so.

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-is-getting-a-bum

He starts this way:

"Get ready for a contrarian entry that will no doubt provoke the ire of many supporters, as did the shorter piece that ran yesterday in The New Republic. If you find yourself reflexively opposed before you even look at it, I can only say you’ve got a lot of company and ask you to make your best efforts to suspend judgment and evaluate the evidence. Thanks."



After another paragraph or so in which he assesses the potential tarnishing of Garland's legacy, he dives in:

"The storyline that Garland let moss grow on the investigation—some say until Smith came aboard, others until the work of the January 6 Committee embarrassed the Department—doesn’t survive scrutiny.

Within days of being sworn in as Attorney General on March 21, 2021, Garland gathered prosecutors working on any aspect of the Trump investigations—including U.S. attorneys, the national security division, and the public integrity section—and instructed them to 'follow the connective tissue upward.' He told them to aggressively follow the money in pursuit of connections between the January 6 marauders and Team Trump. Garland charged the entire team to proceed without restrictions, even if it led to Trump himself."

As the New York Times recently reported, this line of investigation didn’t pan out, but it was a reasonable approach and shows that Garland and his deputy, Lisa Monaco, were focused on the Trump trail from day one."



Having now slightly exceeded the customary three-paragraph limit, I will now do my best to summarize.

Litman goes on to address the criticism of lack of imagination, the criticism that he merely "piggybacked" on the Select Committee's work, the claim of "if only", and the claim that, had the cases been brought sooner, sad gone to court before the election, they would have changed the outcome of that election. Then he puts forward what he calls the "smartest" criticism he has heard, that "Garland walked into the wrong movie." He even discusses the potential effect on the country had Garland been more aggressive.

It's not as long as I have probably made it sound, and it's not technical; it's an easy read. And I hope you will read it and at least consider it. Of course, as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Full disclosure: I've felt all along that Garland was doing the best he could.