MAKING THE CASE
How the Oklahoma City bombing trial prepared Merrick Garland to take on domestic terrorism
The truck bomb leveled a section of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring hundreds more in one of the deadliest domestic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. But as Merrick Garland huddled with the lead prosecutor on the case, he urged caution in presenting the massive amount of evidence from the wreckage.
“Do not bury the crime in the clutter,” he said.
Judge Garland, then a top Justice Department official, was encouraging prosecutors to speed the trial along and jettison superfluous findings in their case against Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of carrying out the 1995 attack and executed in 2001, said Joe Hartzler, the team’s lead attorney. Mr. Hartzler said he found the advice so compelling that he wrote the words on a sheet of paper and hung it on an office wall as a rallying cry for his team.
More than two decades later, Judge Garland, 68, is preparing to lead the Justice Department as attorney general and facing a domestic terrorism threat that has metastasized thanks to white supremacists and conspiracy-minded antigovernment types.
Those who worked with him on the Oklahoma City case — and the prosecution of another notorious domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber — say the experiences shaped him and make him well-positioned to confront the current threat.
“This almost feels like a precursor. How much more experience could you possibly have in domestic terrorism?” said Donna Bucella, a former Justice Department official who, like Judge Garland, was sent to Oklahoma City in the attack’s aftermath to help manage law enforcement’s response. “He’ll be very methodical. I think he’ll demand it’s beingdone the right way.”
Tough questions
Judge Garland, who has spent the past two decades as a federal appellate judge in Washington, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday for a confirmation hearing, where he will face tough questions about how he would handle the threat of domestic terrorism and other politically sensitive matters. Judge Garland, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was known as a moderate judge with a knack for building consensus. Although Senate Republicans famously refused to even consider his nomination for a Supreme Court seat in 2016, he is widely expected to be confirmed as attorney general withbipartisan support.
Judge Garland will face the immediate task of overseeing hundreds of cases stemming from the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, which led to former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Democrats are likely to press him on his willingness to investigate or prosecute Mr. Trump and his allies in connection with inciting the rioters, while Republicans will seek to ensure that he wouldn’t use the Justice Department’s muscle to tamp down conservative ideas.
President Joe Biden recently tasked the director of national intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, with compiling a comprehensive threat assessment on violent domestic extremism. The National Security Council is also reviewing policy to determine whether more can be done to mitigate the threat. Judge Garland and the Justice Department will play a critical role in both efforts, as they will be responsible for investigating and prosecuting possible domestic terrorists nationwide while balancing concerns about civil liberties and free speech rights.
“If you are a good steward of the Department of Justice, you will be very cognizant of the swings that we’ve had in this country between liberty and security,” said Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general who worked with Judge Garland in the 1990s. “And one of the things that this country is going to get with a Merrick Garland attorney general-ship is someone who understands those swings and understands the need to respect the need for security and to respect our civil liberties.”
In his Senate questionnaire, Judge Garland said the most important cases he worked included the prosecution of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, who carried out 16 mail bombings over 17 years, killing three and injuring scores more, and that of McVeigh, a former Army sergeant who came to hate the U.S. government and identify with far-right militia types.
Ms. Gorelick said she recalled sitting in a Justice Department office with Judge Garland, who was then her top deputy, and watching television footage of first responders carrying wounded or dead children out of the wreckage.
“He just said, ‘I’ve got to go. Please send me,’ ” Ms. Gorelick said.
‘Nothing there’
The most devastating part: the site of the building’s day care center.
“There was nothing there. It was just a big, empty concave hole,” Judge Garland, who at the time of the bombing was a father to two young children, said, becoming emotional as he described the experience.
Early in the investigation, Judge Garland served as supervisor and line prosecutor, presenting arguments at an initial hearing on the case even as he coordinated the sprawling, multistate investigation. Because of the damage in Oklahoma City, McVeigh’s initial proceeding was at nearby Tinker Air Force Base; those involved recalled Mr. Garland pushing for media access, despite the logistical challenge.
“You know, it’s going to be bad enough they’re going to conspiracy theories,” Judge Garland recalled saying at the time. “The defendant is going to complain he didn’t get an open hearing. The law requires an open hearing.”
Judge Garland said he initially feared, because of reports of additional threats and truck bombs, that the Oklahoma City explosion was just the beginning of “some kind of rebellion or war.” Larry Mackey, a prosecutor on the McVeigh case and that of co-conspirator Terry Nichols, said Judge Garland encouraged investigators to run down possible connections to militia groups — cognizant that the case had greater meaning for the nation.
“His message — and we certainly understood and believed it, and I think ultimately the jury did as well — [was] that we’re going to respond to terrorism by relying on the institutions that made this country so great,” Mr. Mackey said. “Merrick’s theme — and the prosecution’s theme — was, ‘We’re going to be greater than they are.’ ”
Robert Cleary, the lead prosecutor on the Unabomber case, said Judge Garland brought “a laserlike focus on the issues of gravest importance.”
“Given the times we’re in, I think you’re going to see this as a very real priority for him, and I think you’ll see him and his inner circle dedicating a lot of resources to combating domestic and even international terrorism as well,” Mr. Cleary said.