Ben Gerson: “The US Department of Justice is not an independent agency, like the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission. Its head, the attorney general, is not just the country’s lawyer in chief. He is a member of the Cabinet, which was created to advise the president on all manner of things, including national security, the president’s chief responsibility. The Justice Department itself has a National Security Division. Another of its divisions is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Obviously, Attorney General Merrick Garland has always known all this. Nonetheless, in the face of an organized and multifaceted threat to national security—involving President Donald Trump’s misappropriation of state secrets, attempts to subvert fair elections, and ultimately the weakening of this country’s international standing—Garland’s actions, or, rather, his lengthy pattern of inaction, suggests a deference to other facts and considerations. Garland continued to procrastinate—ostensibly in search of an exorbitant level of proof that might finally convince Donald Trump’s followers that their hero is a criminal.”
