It’s better to be frustrated and impatient than angry and horrified, so getting a new president and administration that isn’t made up of idiots, creeps and criminals is a blessing.

Nevertheless, I never expected to be thinking so much about a few Democratic senators, especially that two-headed, pro-filibuster creature we might as well call “Manchinema”. There is so much that could be accomplished with Joe Biden as president, a small majority in the House and 50 votes in the Senate.

Unfortunately, another source of frustration and impatience at the moment is Attorney General Merrick Garland and the talented lawyers who work for him.

As Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post points out:

[Garland] has . . .  never indicated as to whether, now that former president X is out of office, the department would follow up on alleged illegal conduct examined by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III (e.g., obstruction of justice, perjury, witness tampering). 

Here’s more on that story from Washington Monthly’s Jennifer Taub:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report on Russian Interference in the 2016 Election was released to the public on April 18, 2019 (in redacted form). Volume II provided a clear, detailed roadmap for a post-term prosecution of X for a variety of obstruction-of-justice offenses. The Report noted that while the Justice Department policy forbids prosecuting a president while in office, “Recognizing an immunity from prosecution for a sitting President would not preclude such prosecution once the President’s term is over or he is otherwise removed from office by resignation or impeachment.”

This should have been a bombshell. But, thanks to [former Attorney General] Barr’s words and actions almost a month earlier, selling the report as an exoneration of X, [it] fizzled. (In a particularly egregious headline, the New York Times said that Mueller exonerated X, not even attributing it to Barr.) By the time we got to read the report, Barr’s characterizations had been disproved, but by then the press and public yawned.

Let’s recall what Barr did. On March 22, 2019, the Justice Department received a confidential copy of the 448-page Mueller Report. A former AG and political player for decades, Barr surely saw how damaging it was, so he did not share it. Instead, two days later, on March 24, Barr delivered a four-page letter to Congressional leaders (which was then released to the public). The letter purported to “summarize” the Mueller Report’s “principal conclusions.” But Barr did not provide a truthful summary; he concocted a cynical spin.

Regarding obstruction of justice, Barr said Mueller had concluded that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

This was a shocking revelation. . . .  In a Politico roundup published that day, I contended that “Barr’s conclusions are not credible.”  It took reading between the lines to appreciate his hustle. But, instead of respecting Mueller’s refusal to clear X, Barr told Congress that this meant it was now his job to come to a legal conclusion. But, it was not. Doing so undermined the entire purpose of the Special Counsel statute, which was NOT to leave such a decision in the Attorney General’s hands. Barr claimed that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

Thanks to Barr, many wrongly believe Mueller exonerated X. Around 60 percent of Americans either thought the president had been cleared or were unsure. Only 40 percent correctly understood that Mueller did not exonerate X.

Disappointingly, Merrick Garland’s Justice Department [has chosen] to continue the cover-up. Here’s a little background to explain how this happened and the alternative path Garland could have taken.

Back in April of 2019, Barr said that he relied on advice from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel before drafting his March 24 communication to Congress about the Mueller Report. In response, the non-partisan, public interest organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requesting all related documents.

[The Justice Department] told the judge that one of the documents that CREW wanted was protected from public disclosure under the FOIA law under the “deliberative process privilege.” They argued this particular March 24, 2019 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel to Barr was “pre-decisional” as they claimed it was given to Barr before he made his final decision on whether Trump obstructed justice. And they claimed that it was “deliberative” because it was provided to aid him in his decision-making process.”

On May 4 of this year, Judge Amy Berman Jackson called bullshit on those claims, to put it mildly. In a stinging opinion, she ruled in favor of CREW and ordered Garland’s Justice Department to hand over the memo. . . . Berman Jackson wrote that “there was no decision actually being made as to whether the then-President should be prosecuted.” She saw the DOJ as “girding for a preemptive strike on the Mueller report.” The memo was not shielded as pre-decisional legal advice.

As I wrote in the Washington Monthly at the time, this was Garland’s inflection point. It would have been so very easy to decide not to appeal and to allow the memo to be released. Instead, Garland’s DOJ lawyers doubled down on the deception. On May 25, Garland had his team ask Judge Jackson to stay her order (put it on hold) so they could keep the memo hidden while they appealed her decision. . . . 

Garland’s decision shocked and disappointed many experts. Former Solicitor General Neal Katyal penned an opinion piece arguing that “the American people have a right to see the memo. Then they can decide whether Mr. Barr used his power as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer as a shield to protect the president” . . . 

Garland, who served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1997 to 2021, might have additionally justified releasing the memo to the public on principle. Anyone with eyes could see that both Barr and Justice Department lawyers (still employed by Garland) misled a federal judge. A strong manager would make it clear that dishonesty would no longer be tolerated under his leadership. As a former DOJ prosecutor—after the Oklahoma City bombing Garland left private practice to prosecute domestic terrorism—Garland should have been incensed. As Bob Dole used to say, “Where’s the outrage?” . . . 

Unquote.

Whether that memo is ever made public is much less important than whether our former president (aka the unindicted co-conspirator) is ever prosecuted. Now that he’s no longer shielded by the presidency, he needs to face the music for his obstruction of justice, perjury and witness tampering. Prosecuting him would outrage his crazy supporters. That’s too damn bad. Attorney General Garland needs to demonstrate that powerful people, even presidents, can’t trample on the law and avoid the consequences.