Ties Between Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Deteriorate From Distant to Frigid

Ties Between Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Deteriorate From Distant to Frigid - WSJ

Respect and admiration among White House aides for Garland, a longtime federal appeals-court judge chosen to underscore the independence of the Justice Department, has shifted for some into resignation and distrust. They point to Garland having appointed not just a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, but two others as well: one looking into Biden and another probing his son, Hunter Biden. On Thursday, the latter indicted the younger Biden on gun charges.

Some Biden aides have said they see Garland’s handling of the inquiries into the Biden family as driven less by a dispassionate pursuit of justice than by a punctilious desire to give the appearance that sensitive investigations are walled off from political pressure, people familiar with the matter say.

Hunter Biden’s plea deal, agreed to in June, raised hopes among President Biden’s allies that his yearslong legal and personal drama could largely be resolved and not hang over the 2024 presidential campaign, in which Biden is running for re-election. After the agreement imploded in court, though, Garland made the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney, David Weiss, a special counsel to continue the five-year probe.

That left some White House aides believing Garland had mismanaged the inquiry, the people said. Some Biden aides also felt Garland should have taken a firmer hand after agents working on the case came forward to Republican lawmakers with allegations of improper interference in the investigation, which the aides viewed as agents improperly leaking investigative information. Hunter Biden’s lawyers have argued as much directly to the Justice Department, while the agents have said they were reporting concerns through appropriate channels.


This should be fun watching the left start attacking each other.