Merrick Garland, Obama's blocked Supreme Court nominee, to be Biden's attorney general

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge and former Supreme Court nominee, as the next attorney general – a move that highlights Biden’s desire to restore independence to a Justice Department that has been scarred by the intense partisan politics of the Trump era.

Garland, 68, who served as a top Justice Department official in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, faces a tough task, including major decisions on whether to respond to calls to investigate President Donald Trump and members of his administration, and overseeing the tax probe into Biden’s son, Hunter.

News of Biden’s selection came on a day when Trump supporters, egged on by a president who has led a falsehood-filled campaign to overturn the election, violently stormed the U.S. Capitol complex and forced lawmakers to suspend the counting of electoral votes. He will ultimately be responsible for how the

Justice Department handles the prosecution of anyone arrested in the melee.

With Democrats securing control of the Senate in Tuesday’s runoff elections in Georgia, Garland is expected to be easily confirmed as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. His nomination, which Biden plans to announce Thursday, was greeted with enthusiasm from Democratic lawmakers. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., told CNN that the federal judge is “someone that knows the law. He’s someone that – to me, one of the things that’s really important – will bring credibility back to the Justice Department and improve morale.”

Republicans signaled that they will not put up much of a fight over the selection. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an influential GOP voice on Justice Department issues, said in a tweet that he believed “Judge Garland would be a sound choice to be the next Attorney General. He is a man of great character, integrity, and tremendous competency in the law.”

It is not unprecedented for a president to seek an outsider or federal judge to lead the Justice Department, particularly in a time of turmoil. President George W. Bush tapped Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, to lead the agency after the tumult of Alberto Gonzalez’s tenure. President Gerald Ford appointed Edward Levi, the president of the University of Chicago who was viewed as apolitical, to lead the department as it was struggling to emerge from the crisis of Watergate.

Current and former federal prosecutors say that among Garland’s top priorities will be to improve morale in the agency.

Over the last four years, the department has found itself caught in the political crossfire over an investigation into Russia’s election interference in 2016 and probes involving the president and his associates. Trump has spent the last four years blasting the department’s leaders for failing to investigate his political rivals and to halt probes that he has falsely called witch hunts and hoaxes.