March 11 marks one year since Merrick Garland was sworn in as Attorney General of the United States. And as the Senate debates a Supreme Court vacancy, there’s no better time to reflect on just how much of a disaster Garland would have been as a Justice with lifetime tenure.
A full year into his time at the Justice Department, Garland has abdicated his duty to dispassionately enforce the law in favor of politicizing his department’s powers to advance the left’s agenda. Garland’s leadership of the Justice Department establishes dangerous legal precedents and is sowing serious doubt that the rule of law will always be applied in a fair, equal and just manner.
The laundry list of actions Garland has initiated are truly head-scratching, not just because of their blatant bias, but because they do nothing to strengthen our country’s freedoms, justice or the rule of law. In fact, they make us weaker and less safe. In his first year alone, Garland has gone after police, parents, students and taxpayers.
Garland showed his disdain for law enforcement by politicizing recent tragedies and taking aim at local police departments from Minneapolis to Louisville. He revealed how little he cared for the First Amendment by prosecuting a journalist with opposing opinions who dared to stand up to Joe Biden and Big Tech.
With illegal border crossings reaching record levels, Garland and other Biden left-wing government officials thought it would be a great idea to give away millions in taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrant families, encouraging lawlessness at the border and incentivizing even more illegal migration.
But where does he draw the line? When Asian Americans and white students bring suit against Ivy League Schools for discriminatory practices. Then, his concern is not so much about discrimination or injustice, but about “equity.”
Garland uses the DOJ as an instrument for selective federalism, targeting red states implementing laws passed by their duly-elected officials but allowing blue states complete autonomy without federal hindrance. Garland sued Texas over its redistricting plan and abortion legislation, as well as Georgia over its voting law.
Meanwhile, Garland has been silent while Democrats in New York, Maryland and Illinois do everything they can to keep the House by gerrymandering congressional lines that would make a jigsaw puzzle blush. Justice is blind, unless you’re Garland, who seems solely focused on red states not willing to succumb to his ideological will.
Perhaps the most surreal action Garland has taken as Attorney General is his vendetta against parents who only want what is best for their children in schools. Last September, amid parents attending school board meetings questioning school curriculum – often containing leftist, woke indoctrination – the National School Boards Association sent a letter which likened these parents’ actions to those of domestic terrorists. Garland then issued a memo instructing the FBI to investigate alleged threats against teachers and school boards.
Garland appears to take his marching orders from the Democratic Party’s loudest, most liberal voices, demonstrating none of the supposed “moderation” the media claimed he would.
It wasn’t so long ago that Garland’s supporters were accusing Sens. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley of playing politics with his Supreme Court nomination (never mind the fact that the people in Garland’s corner ignored what the U.S. Constitution actually states about the Senate’s role regarding court vacancies).
At the Justice Department, Garland plays politics as a full-time job, putting his leftist agenda above the law and either instructing or allowing one of the most powerful and consequential government departments in our country to do the same.
Could you imagine if Garland had a lifetime appointment to push his liberal manifesto as a Supreme Court Justice? It’s because of McConnell’s and Grassley’s wise foresight that we don’t have to worry about such a constitutional disaster.
In nominating Garland, Biden promised the nation’s next attorney general would “restore the honor, the integrity, the independence” of the Department of Justice. Unfortunately, Garland has done everything but. His actions have inflicted irreparable harm to his reputation, but more importantly to the Department of Justice. Garland has systematically taken it upon himself to use the department as a tool to further promote the Democratic Party’s liberal agenda while ignoring the principles of federalism and the rule of law that make this country so great.
Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P), a grassroots advocacy organization that supports constitutionalist judges, fights radical assaults on judicial independence and opposes nominees outside of the mainstream. Davis previously served as the chief counsel for nominations for then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), where he served as staff leader for the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh and a record number of federal circuit judges. Davis previously clerked for Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, both on the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.