Merrick Garland Writes Op-ed Calling Criticism of His DOJ ‘Dangerous

Attorney General Merrick Garland is responding to what he says are “unfounded attacks” that are endangering Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and, by extension, the state of democracy in the United States as the GOP pushes back against what they see as partisan law fare.

The Washington Post published an op-ed on Monday in which Garland called for an end to a wave of conspiracy theories, lies, intimidation and threats of violence that he said have escalated against public servants under his charge — including the FBI — in recent weeks.

Garland made reference to the myriad prosecutions against former President Donald Trump as he runs another campaign for the White House, including the hush-money case in New York in which a jury recently found Trump guilty on all the felony counts he faced.

“These attacks come in the form of threats to defund particular department investigations, most recently the special counsel’s prosecution of the former president,” Garland wrote, alluding to a House GOP push to block or limit federal grant funds for Trump prosecutors.

Garland said conspiracy theories are used to undermine “public trust in the judicial process itself.” Among them, he said, are “false claims that a case brought by a local district attorney and resolved by a jury verdict in a state trial was somehow controlled by the Justice Department.”

DOJ officials “do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less,” Garland wrote.

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“We will not be intimidated by these attacks,” he said. “But it is absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long guided the Justice Department’s work.”

The op-ed comes as House Republicans are moving toward holding Garland in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to hand over recordings from special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.

On the same day Garland similarly defended the DOJ before a House panel last week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced a “three-pronged” response to what Republicans have described as a “weaponized” justice system using investigations, legislation, and power of the purse.

Garland insisted in his op-ed the DOJ does not make political decisions in criminal investigations, a charge GOP critics have made in regard to the Trump cases and others, and warned “democracy cannot survive” without a justice system that guarantees equal treatment of all its citizens.

“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy. They are normal,” Garland wrote. “But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal.”

“The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country,” he added. “Continued unfounded attacks against the Justice Department’s employees are dangerous for people’s safety. They are dangerous for our democracy. This must stop.”

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