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Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus argued on Wednesday that Republicans are making extremely "unfair" accusations against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland by claiming that he is "introducing politics into the Justice Department," especially with the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid.
Ever since the unprecedented FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate on Monday, Trump and his allies have claimed the search is evidence of the "weaponization of the Justice system" against political opponents. They have also called for Garland to "resign or be impeached," or at least be made to provide "answers" about the raid to the American people.
In her opinion column, the Washington Post deputy editorial page editor called such claims "unhinged" and defended Garland as a by-the-book, "deliberative, hyper-methodical attorney general," who had "probable cause" to authorize the raid.
Marcus began her column, "Now, Garland finds himself in the crosshairs of conservatives infuriated by a court-ordered search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home, and working themselves into a frenzy over Garland’s supposed political ‘weaponization’ of the Justice Department."
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Aerial footage of police stationed outside of Mar-a-Lago during FBI raid (WFOR)
Including the left’s criticism that Garland is "not moving fast enough to pursue criminal charges against former president Donald Trump," she claimed, "Neither seems to understand the first thing about the deliberative, hyper-methodical attorney general. Garland was going to go slow, or appear that way, because going slow is what careful lawyers do."
Marcus defended Garland further, adding, "responsible prosecutors do not show their hands in public until they are ready to bring charges." She also claimed he’s "innately and immensely cautious — but caution is warranted in the case of an attorney general weighing the monumental step of prosecuting a former president."
The columnist then went after the recent conservative attacks against Garland’s DOJ in the wake of the raid, saying, "conservatives are positively unhinged. Their portrayal of Garland and his stewardship of the Justice Department bears no relation to the man or his performance. It is a caricature that would be laughable if it were not so alarming."
She blasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the former president’s take that under Garland’s authority the DOJ has engaged in "prosecutorial misconduct," and "weaponized politicization." Marcus dismissed it all as pure "Trump sycophancy."
Accusing the GOP of double standards on this front, the columnist asked, "Where was McCarthy on the department’s ‘intolerable state of weaponized politicization’ when Garland’s predecessor, William P. Barr, was busy overruling career prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation for Trump ally Roger Stone or dismissing the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, after Flynn’s guilty plea?"
She also asked where McCarthy was when "Trump himself was trying to, yes, weaponize the Justice Department in his desperate effort to undo the election results."
A Washington Post columnist argued that conservatives accusing Attorney General Merrick Garland of politicizing the DOJ are "unhinged." (AP/Susan Walsh)
Admonishing Hawley’s charge that the raid was "an unprecedented assault" on the "rule of law," Marcus asserted that "the execution of a search warrant" was "approved by a federal magistrate who would have found probable cause to believe that a crime may have been committed and that evidence was present in the place to be searched."
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"That is the definition of the rule of law — not an assault on it," she countered.
Marcus insisted that Garland believed the raid was necessary. "The attorney general did not authorize a search of the home of a former president — and I presume he was at least informed of a decision of that magnitude — unless he was doubly certain the action was justified."
And she claimed that if he made any mistakes, it’s that he’s too by-the-book. "He is a stickler for procedure; if anything, his missteps at the department have been to hew too closely to department norms and stick to positions adopted under the Trump administration."
In conclusion, Marcus insisted "there can be no accusation more unfair than that Garland, of all people, is introducing politics into the Justice Department." After all, he was appointed to repair "the damage to the department inflicted during the Trump years, reaffirming the norms ‘that like cases be treated alike.’"
The columnist declared that portraying "Garland as the great politicizer" is a "smear of a man who has devoted his career to ensuring the opposite."
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A Wednesday Washington Post column claimed, "there can be no accusation more unfair than that Garland, of all people, is introducing politics into the Justice Department." (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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