WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden presented his choice to the country’s top security officer on Thursday, turning to experienced judge Merrick Garland to help depoliticize the Department of Justice and restore the state of Law after what happened President described as four years of illegality under President Donald Trump.
Biden also described the pro-Trump crowd that invaded the Capitol on Wednesday as “domestic terrorists” and attacked the Republican president for inciting the siege.
“In the past four years, we have had a president who has made clear his contempt for our democracy, our constitution, the rule of law in everything he has done,” said Biden, promising a dramatic change in his government. “More than anything, we need to restore the honor, integrity and independence of the Department of Justice that has been so damaged.”
If confirmed by the Senate, which is likely, Garland would take over the United States attorney general’s office at a critical time for the country and the agency. He would inherit urgent challenges related to policing and civil rights, an ongoing criminal tax investigation into Biden’s son Hunter, and Democratic calls for criminal investigations into Trump after he leaves office.
In addition to these issues, Garland would have the task of repairing the broader distrust of the American people in the Department of Justice, fostered during the tumultuous four years under Trump’s leadership. The Republican president regularly meddled in the department, mainly firing FBI director James Comey while his agency investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Biden vowed that Garland’s loyalty would lie not with the president, but with the law and the constitution.
“You don’t work for me,” Biden charged when introducing Garland.
Facing the public for the first time alongside Biden, Garland vowed to restore an equal commitment to law, order and integrity to the country’s top law enforcement agency, pointing to Wednesday’s attack on Capitol Hill as a result of haven’t done that.
“As everyone who watched yesterday’s events in Washington now understands, if they didn’t understand before, the rule of law is not just the phrase of some lawyers, it is the very foundation of our democracy,” said Garland.
Garland can be a household name for political observers.
Senate Republicans rejected him four years ago, even refusing to hold hearings when President Barack Obama appointed him to the Supreme Court. His prospects for confirmation as Attorney General were practically guaranteed when Democrats won majority control in the Senate by winning two seats in the Georgia Senate.
Biden also introduced three others to senior leadership positions in the Justice Department on Thursday, including the Obama administration’s internal security adviser, Lisa Monaco, as assistant attorney general and former Justice Department civil rights chief, Vanita Gupta, as associate attorney general, the third authority. He also appointed an assistant attorney general for civil rights, Kristen Clarke, now chairman of the Civil Rights Lawyers Committee, an advocacy group.
Garland was chosen among other finalists, including former Senator Doug Jones, D-Ala., And former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
The department is expected to drastically change the course under new leadership, including through a different approach to civil rights issues and national policing policies, after the racial calculation triggered by the continuing deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.
Black and Latino advocates wanted a black attorney general or someone with experience in civil rights causes and criminal justice reform. Groups such as the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund defended Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court, but the extent of support from minority groups to the position of attorney general was not immediately clear.
Although Garland is white, the choice of Gupta and Clarke, two women with significant experience in civil rights, seemed to alleviate any concerns and served as a sign that progressive causes would be prioritized in the new government. Gupta is the daughter of immigrants from India and Clarke’s parents are from Jamaica.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris addressed the racial justice disparities during Thursday’s event, connecting them to this week’s Capitol invasion.
She said that fixing the conditions that led to the violence in Washington would require the new government to understand “how to reform, how to transform, a justice system that doesn’t work equally for everyone – a justice system with different experiences depending on whether you’re white or black. . “
“We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that allowed extremists to invade the United States Capitol and another that launched tear gas against peaceful protesters last summer,” added Harris. “We know that we should be better.”
Having worked for the Department of Justice decades ago, Garland would return to an agency radically different from the one he left. A proliferation of cyber threats and aggressive counterintelligence from foreign opponents has made countries like China, Russia and North Korea the top priorities for federal law enforcement.
Monaco, in particular, brings significant national security experience to the department, including cyber security – an especially urgent matter, as the U.S. government faces a devastating invasion of federal agencies that officials have linked to Russia.
Some of the problems with Garland’s first visit to the department persist.
The FBI faced an outbreak of violence by anti-government and racially motivated extremists. Garland, as a senior Justice Department official, helped manage the federal government’s response to the 1995 bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. The suicide bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was later executed.
Garland called the work “the most important thing I’ve ever done” and was known to keep a framed photo of the Oklahoma City Federal Alfred P. Murrah Building in her Washington courthouse.
Garland has been on the federal appeals court in Washington since 1997. Prior to that, he had worked in private practice, as well as a federal prosecutor, a senior officer in the Department of Justice’s criminal division and the principal associate deputy attorney general.
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AP writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed.