# F Merrick Garland. (He won't be going after anyone)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 19, 2022, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190 "2022-07-19T06:39:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 41
### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/801 "2025-05-24T04:36:47Z")
You misspelled ‘worthless’, but, yes: Nothing wrong with self-reflection and wondering where, how, and with whom we went wrong.
Merrick Garland as AG was the single greatest mistake of tje Biden administration and #2… whatever it is… isn’t even close on this scale. He slow-walked the most obvious criminal investigation in the history of this country and allowed the criminals to gain power again.
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### Author:  [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/802 "2025-05-24T09:28:57Z")
I want Garland to write his memoirs and explain what he thinks went wrong. I’d also like to hear from the others who investigated or prosecuted Trump: Robert Mueller, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and especially Jack Smith. Each faced their own set of circumstances, and each has a different story to tell. But if they were candid, their personal accounts could be illuminating.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/803 "2025-05-24T15:57:57Z")
For some of them it would be: “I wanted it to be 100% idiot-proof ironclad obvious it was NOT political and that they could not argue they were not given a fair chance; but I never thought I had to finish in 3 years!!”
The fallacy there is the MAGAs would claim shenanigans and his defense teams would flood the zone with delaying motions _no matter what._
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/804 "2025-05-24T16:44:36Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> You misspelled ‘worthless’, but, yes: Nothing wrong with self-reflection and wondering where, how, and with whom we went wrong.
>
> Merrick Garland as AG was the single greatest mistake of tje Biden administration and #2… whatever it is… isn’t even close on this scale. He slow-walked the most obvious criminal investigation in the history of this country and allowed the criminals to gain power again.
I’ve gotta agree, and waiting until Trump announced he was running again before EVEN STARTING an investigation was bad optics.
And the person that doesn’t get nearly enough share of the blame was Christopher Wray, the most right wing person they could - at the time - get approved for Comey’s old job.
I will always remember his public testimony that he didn’t see a connection between Trump’s election loss and the J6 riot, deflecting the question by saying “Everyone that was there had a different motive and a different reason for being there” and dismissing the Stop The Steal movement as “scattered online chatter”.
And I’ll also remember that the only reason I know this was I was listening live to the hearing and later went back and hunted it down in the transcript because I couldn’t believe the media missed it.
But they did. I could do another couple of pages on how partisan and horrid Wray was, but that’s not the topic. But Wray sure made it easy for Garland to enable Trump by not investigating Trump…..and his willful ignorance of the nature of Jan 6th probably made it harder for the DOJ to make good decisions.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/805 "2025-05-24T17:36:49Z")
I remember arguments that the DOJ was running a classic ‘roll them up’ case: go after the small guys, lean on them to get information about the higher up, rinse, wash, repeat until you get to the top.
This legitimately made no sense to me as there were no levels to J6: Trump rallied a mob to attack the capital all by himself. All 300+ million of us watched him prepare for J6 through December 2020, I even predicted it _[6 days](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182)_ after the 2020 election, and we ended up watching him do what he said he was going to do… and the DOJ thought they had to roll him up like a mob boss?
Made no sense at the time, makes no sense now. But at least the standards were held! When ICE starts rolling up entire neighborhoods in 2027, I’m sure Garland and his supporters can comfort themselves knowing that, at least, the book was followed.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/806 "2025-05-24T17:51:24Z")
This is what I wonder.
Do people like Garland and some of the others named here think that they did everything they could? Were they afraid to rock the boat? How do people like Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich feel about their strategies and actions now that we are here?
Not that we’ll ever know.
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/807 "2025-05-24T18:12:56Z")
Even if he started the prosecution earlier, I’m not sure it would have mattered. He doesn’t seem like he’d be capable of dealing with all of Trump’s legal shenanigans. The delays and endless fillings would have flummoxed Garland and nothing would have gotten resolved. The prosecutor needed to be someone way more aggressive and savvy with navigating the legal system, like Jack Smith. Garland seems like he’d be a fine professor in law school, but he doesn’t have that killer instinct to handle a case like this.
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/808 "2025-05-24T18:23:29Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> I remember arguments that the DOJ was running a classic ‘roll them up’ case: go after the small guys, lean on them to get information about the higher up, rinse, wash, repeat until you get to the top.
It also made no sense because there was no evidence of them “rolling up” the smaller players. No matter how discreet the DOJ was, if the right wing influencers that helped Trump we’re being investigated, if their communications were being subpoenaed, we would’ve heard about it FROM THEM, not the DOJ.
Of course, the fact that the leadership of the FBI was dead set on protecting Trump made it harder for the DOJ.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/809 "2025-05-24T21:40:07Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#):
>
> This is what I wonder.
>
> Do people like Garland and some of the others named here think that they did everything they could? Were they afraid to rock the boat?
The Democrats have long made a point of shielding the Republicans from the consequences of their actions. I still recall how one of the first things Obama did when taking office was to forbid any further investigation into Bush’s various misdeeds.
I’m reasonably sure that Trump escaping punishment was the intended outcome, and that the investigation was slow-walked in hopes that either he’d get re-elected and kill it or just die of old age. Trump being punished for committing crimes would be “uncivil” and “violating the norms” after all.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/810 "2025-05-24T21:54:43Z")
I don’t understand this at all. Appeasement? Enabling? Co-dependence? Rational, healthy behavior?
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/811 "2025-05-24T22:09:54Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#):
>
> I don’t understand this at all. Appeasement? Enabling? Co-dependence?
A mix of all of that and an obsessive attachment to one-sided “norms and civility”, IMHO.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/812 "2025-05-24T22:34:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> A mix of all of that and an obsessive attachment to one-sided “norms and civility”, IMHO.
Yes, and a failure to understand that the other side’s utter disdain for said “norms and civility” would have consequences that are a tad more serious than ‘less-than-glowing assessments by future scholars’ (which has always seemed to be Garland’s idea of the Worst Possible Outcome to his decisions).
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2025, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/813 "2025-05-25T03:38:37Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> ‘less-than-glowing assessments by future scholars’ (which has always seemed to be Garland’s idea of the Worst Possible Outcome to his decisions).
And after all his obsequious slow-walking, I do not think history will look kindly on him. Dragging his feet for 20 months certainly will not age well.
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### Author:  [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2025, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/814 "2025-05-25T17:17:09Z")
With allies as Garland you don’t need enemies.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/815 "2025-05-25T18:17:56Z")
> [@EllisDee](#):
>
> And after all his obsequious slow-walking, I do not think history will look kindly on him.
Why??
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### Author:  [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/816 "2025-05-25T18:23:58Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> Yes, and a failure to understand that the other side’s utter disdain for said “norms and civility” would have consequences that are a tad more serious than ‘less-than-glowing assessments by future scholars’ (which has always seemed to be Garland’s idea of the Worst Possible Outcome to his decisions).
It’s like the Dems are sane-washing as badly as a lot of the media; they don’t seem to “get it”.
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### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/817 "2025-05-26T00:09:20Z")
Contrarian take, and not for a contrarian’s sake, but I think it was probably a mistake to prosecute Trump. It’s not that I believe he isn’t a criminal. He almost certainly _is_ many, many times over.
But I think Gerry Ford was onto something when he decided to pardon Nixon. He probably realized, as we’ve found out over the last several years, prosecuting a president is deeply polarizing. It makes politics even more tribal. Even if Trump had been convicted, it wouldn’t have filled the great chasm that exists in our country’s politics.
I sort of wonder if maybe it would have been better for Biden to offer Trump a pardon and a chance at a national reconciliation commission or something like it. Trump could have - probably would have - refused and told Biden to stuff it, but at least the olive branch would have been offered to the former president and future candidate for president, so at least the opposition can’t say that they were going after a political opponent.
I think the door still could have been left open for prosecuting, say, Mark Meadows and others involved in the events of January 6th. Obviously, the state prosecutors could have continued to do their thing, but at least at the federal level, the then-president isn’t in the awkward position of essentially presiding over a prosecution of his opponent.
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### Author:  [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/818 "2025-05-26T01:20:23Z")
We tried not prosecuting Nixon, we tried all but pretending that Iran-Contra didn’t happen, we tried not prosecuting anyone for the Brooks Brothers Riot in the 2000 election and we got a divided country and a lawless presidency.
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### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/819 "2025-05-26T01:44:17Z")
But prosecuting wouldn’t have made (didn’t make us) us less divided. The real remedy was impeachment and conviction in the Senate, and that didn’t happen because the country is polarized.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/820 "2025-05-26T02:26:02Z")
So if we’ve decided we shouldn’t prosecute lest things be even worse, can you suggest who should be above which laws? Just the Emoluments clause and white-collar felonies and inciting riots, or actual rape and murder, too?
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