Charles Pierce: Merrick Garland Needs to Be Thanked For His Service and Shown the Door

[Celerity]

He is not equipped to use all the tools god gave the Department of Justice to thwart the genuine threat to the Republic that is El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago, and the dangerous political climate he has created.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a46709640/merrick-garland-fbi-failure/



I have come to the sad conclusion that, like Brian Wilson, Attorney General Merrick Garland just wasn't made for these times, and, like Tom Hagen, he's just not a wartime consigliere. I hung in there longer than most people I know. But, this week, the case against him got overwhelming. The man needs to be thanked for his service and then shown the door.

He is not equipped to use all the tools god gave the Department of Justice to thwart the genuine threat to the Republic that is El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago, and the dangerous political climate he has created. The former president* should have been charged federally with insurrection literally years ago. (Hell, during Thursday's oral arguments in the Supreme Court concerning the former president*'s eligibility under the 14th Amendment, even Justice Brett Kavanaugh wondered why he hadn't been so charged, and Kavanaugh used to work for Ken Starr, if we're talking about using all the DOJ's tools at your disposal.) The DOJ should have gone hammer-and-tongs after all the members of Congress who had the slightest connection with the insurrection. Somebody higher than the bear spray crowd should have been arrested and held until trial. Some of the expensive loafers should have been confiscated during the booking process rather than all those duckboots.

As diligent as Jack Smith has been, and god save the good work, he shouldn't have been necessary. This business didn't need a special counsel. It needed the Attorney General and the FBI right from jump. It should have been the very first item on Garland's plate when he walked in the door. And he's spent nearly four years faffing around until Republican congresscritters, some of whom had very curious connections to the events of that day, feel free to call the thugs and vandals, "political prisoners," and we've even come to arguing over whether or not the violence of that day constituted an "insurrection." Mother of god, the former president* is even money to be the next president, and the only real obstacle in his way seems to be whether or not his coronary arteries will do good service.

Thursday was the end for me. Appointing a Republican hack like Robert Hur to "investigate" the non-crimes of the president was bad enough, but then to allow Hur to pile on a political hit piece about the president's memory, thereby normalizing one of the former president*'s attack lines on DOJ stationery, is not admirably fair-minded, it's constitutionally suicidal. God save us from the fair-minded. They'll kill the country and wonder how they did it.

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