He won coveted positions with Henry J. Friendly, a federal appeals judge, and Judge William J. Brennan Jr. He switched between prestigious public and private jobs before going to the Justice Department, where Gorelick made him his representative.
Judge Garland and his 33-year-old wife Lynn Garland live in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland. Its 2020 financial disclosure forms list assets of $ 8.6 million to $ 32.9 million, including trust funds set up by Garland’s parents. He maintains a large collection of friends, is a family presence at dinner parties in Washington and adores his former employees.
A former employee, Karen Dunn, now a lawyer in Washington, remembers how the Garlands unexpectedly fell on her with a fully prepared dinner when she returned from the hospital after the birth of her first child. “They brought food, they sat and ate with us, cleaned up and then left,” recalls Dunn.
Judge Garland is now awaiting confirmation from the Senate, probably not her favorite word combination, given the story. But his appointment should not face serious opposition. Several Republican senators were keen to say at the time that their blockade of Judge Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court in 2016 “was not personal”, whatever that might be worth. (Not much, for friends.)
On Friday, a large, bipartisan group of former Justice Department officials and former federal judges sent two letters to Senate leaders asking for Judge Garland’s prompt confirmation. Among them were four former attorney generals: Alberto R. Gonzales and Michael B. Mukasey, who served in the George W. Bush administration, and Eric H. Holder Jr. and Loretta Lynch, who served in the Obama administration. The group also included Ken Starr, the independent lawyer in the Whitewater investigation.
At the very least, friends said, becoming an attorney general would free Judge Garland from the reputational purgatory of being defined by his trial at the Supreme Court. “It’s interesting how fate works sometimes,” said J. Gilmore Childers, a lawyer and colleague at the Justice Department in Oklahoma City. “Merrick Garland could be the perfect person to do this job, at this particular time.”