Commentary
The current brouhaha over Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision not to involve the FBI in the search of classified documents in the possession of President Biden at various locations is but the latest among a long list of criticism of the DOJ’s role by the opposition party no matter who’s the AG.
Republicans were critical of Garland’s approval of a sending a phalanx of armed FBI agents to raid former President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago to gather up documents, some of which were classified, while Trump was in New York.
Denied a seat on the Supreme Court by the Republican Party, it’s easy to see how Garland can be viewed as a new Deep State player with a vendetta against Trump.
The optics at the DOJ are not good. Surely, Garland is hoping that his two special counsels investigating the Trump and Biden document matters provide him with an “out.”
Republicans cite the weak statement from the DOJ that the use of FBI agents in the search of Biden properties wasn’t required because his attorneys were cooperating when it was known that Trump, too, was cooperating. He even had an additional padlock installed when it was requested by the FBI.
Garland’s decision to allow private counsel to do the Biden search undermines the DOJ’s threat of criminal charges over mishandling of classified material, says Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor
Republican AG’s
When Bill Barr accepted former President Trump’s nomination to be his attorney general, he did so because of his concern over the weaponization of the DOJ. However, it wasn’t long before Democrats accused him of being Trump’s personal attorney.
Barr replaced Jeff Sessions, who was criticized not only by Democrats but by Trump himself, who initially selected Sessions for the loyalty he exhibited during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump was highly vocal over Sessions recusing himself from the investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 campaign.
I recall when the rotund New York Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler said of Attorney General Bill Barr that he “was willing to do the President’s bidding on every front,” and was even critical of him when he refused to “play along with President Trump’s nonsensical claims to have won the election.”
Democrat Black Eye
It was under Attorney General Loretta Lynch, an appointee of then President Obama, that the Department weakly dealt with the legality of Hillary Clinton having a private computer server in her home.
As with the current favored treatment toward Biden, James Comey and the FBI showed leniency in this case involving the former first lady and secretary of state.
The Justice Department, as a rule, is fairly aggressive when an attorney is perceived to have a conflict of interest, but Hillary’s top aide, Cheryl Mills, was given a pass to serve as Hillary’s attorney, even though she was a witness in the case.
Mills was in possession of a laptop which the FBI would normally get a grand jury subpoena for her to produce it, but was granted immunity along with Clinton aides Heather Samuelson, Beth Wilkinson and two computer specialists.
Incredibly, Mills and eight other Hillary aides, were permitted to participate in the Clinton interview conducted by just two FBI agents.
Later, Lynch had to be relieved when Comey effectively took indictment off the table when he boldly asserted that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her based on what the FBI found.
Even though Comey stated that “We didn’t find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
About two weeks after drawing considerable criticism for a meeting she had with Bill Clinton on her airplane while parked at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, Lynch confirmed that the case against Hillary would be closed without criminal charges.
Not to be forgotten
Then there was Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ decision not to defend President Trump’s executive order on immigration in January 2017, for which she was hailed by the DNC for standing up to a supposedly “tyrannical” president.
Andrew Weissmann, long associated with Hillary, publicly praised Yates for her decision stating, “I am so proud of you, and in awe. Thank you.”
She was fired by Trump.
“This was a textbook case of insubordination, and the president was well within his constitutional powers to fire her,” wrote Josh Blackman, then a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston.
“If Yates truly felt this way, she should have told the president her conclusions in confidence,” he wrote. “If he disagreed, she had one option: resign. Instead, she made herself a political martyr.”
We’ve all heard, ‘No one is above the law,’ but giving singular accreditation for the quote is impossible.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
