Joe Biden will nominate Merrick Garland as attorney general
WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden will nominate federal appeals court docket Judge Merrick Garland to serve attorney general, the nation’s chief legislation enforcement officer, an individual accustomed to the choice advised USA TODAY.
Garland’s nomination, first reported Wednesday by the Associated Press, will come as Biden seeks to show the web page on a tumultuous interval on the Justice Department marred by allegations of politicization below the Trump administration. By selecting Garland, who has spent the final 20 years on the federal appeals court docket and has a popularity for being a reasonable, Biden seems to be aiming for a division free from political affect.
Spokespeople for Biden’s transition staff didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Garland is not any stranger to the Justice Department. The 68-year-old jurist turned a federal prosecutor in 1989 and led a few of the division’s most important felony instances, together with the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1997.
Garland’s identify most not too long ago re-entered headlines in November as Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, was confirmed simply weeks earlier than the presidential election. In 2016, Garland discovered himself on the heart of a political tug-o-war after former President Barack Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court to switch the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, one of many excessive court docket’s conservative jurists. Garland, then the chief justice of the federal appeals court docket, was seen as a palatable Supreme Court nominee for conservatives.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the nomination, insisting that Scalia’s seat shouldn’t be crammed as a result of the presidential election was months away. McConnell deserted that argument as he and Republicans pushed for Barrett’s affirmation.
At the time Garland’s nomination, then-Vice President Biden criticized his former colleagues within the Senate. “By denying a fair hearing to Chief Judge Garland, Senate Republicans are failing to fulfill their Constitutional obligation,” Biden wrote.
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, in the end crammed Scalia’s seat.
As federal prosecutor, Garland additionally oversaw the Unabomber investigation that led to the Nineties conviction of Ted Kaczynski, a case he would later say resonated with him extra deeply than others.
“I saw up close the devastation that can happen when someone abandons the justice system as a way of resolving grievances and instead takes matters into his own hands,” Garland said. “Once again, I saw the importance of assuring victims and families that the justice system could work.”
Garland was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – the second strongest court docket within the nation – in 1997 and was confirmed on a bipartisan vote. Garland went on to construct a popularity as a consensus-builder and a reasonable jurist who received praises from each side of the aisle.
