Life of Wry

I read this piece a few days ago. It is so painful.

I think so many of us defended Merrick Garland the last four years, in spite of our frustrations at the pace of the cases against trump, because of the huge injustice of Mitch McConnell having thwarted his nomination to the Supreme Court near the end of Obama’s presidency. Biden then choosing him as his Attorney General five years later seemed like such a sweet comeback! Garland seemed reasoned and seasoned and we trusted his sober, thoughtful, meticulous approach to the job. We expected the justice department, under his dignified leadership, would produce fair and just outcomes for so many things, but especially the resolution of those trump cases. I just hate that it ended up this way.

I do believe he’d have been a superb justice. But I also have to agree that, in the end, his tenure as AG was a disappointment.

Written by a guy, Tony Pentimalli.

Merrick Garland’s tenure as Attorney General is not just a failure—it’s a betrayal of justice at the most critical moment in modern American history. He may have been a great judge. He may have made a great Supreme Court justice. But his ineptitude regarding the slow investigations and prosecutions of Donald Trump is not just tragic—it’s inexcusable. Garland was handed the most urgent and consequential task of our time: holding Trump accountable for his blatant assault on democracy. And he failed. Miserably.

From the day he took office, Garland had everything he needed to act. Trump’s crimes weren’t buried in secret files—they were blasted on live television. The man incited a mob to storm the Capitol. He schemed to overturn an election. He stole classified documents and flaunted his disregard for the law. The evidence was overwhelming. The urgency was clear. Yet Garland hesitated. For months, then years, the Department of Justice appeared paralyzed under his leadership.

Take, for example, the nearly two-year delay in pursuing charges for Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. The public knew about Trump’s actions almost immediately after he left office. Boxes of stolen records sat in his Mar-a-Lago storage room, the subject of media exposés. Yet Garland’s DOJ moved at a snail’s pace, allowing Trump to manipulate the narrative and undermine public confidence in the investigation. Or consider the January 6 investigation. While Garland’s DOJ pursued hundreds of small-scale rioters—citizens who broke windows and trespassed—they ignored the architects of the insurrection. Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Trump himself skated free while their foot soldiers faced justice. This isn’t just mismanagement; it’s dereliction of duty.

Garland’s inability to distinguish between caution and paralysis has left the Department of Justice in shambles. A recent CNN report revealed just how much time and effort his DOJ wasted chasing known rabbit holes—dead-end investigations that served no purpose but to delay the inevitable. Meanwhile, prosecutors like Fani Willis in Georgia and Alvin Bragg in New York exposed Garland’s timidity by acting swiftly and decisively on crimes committed within their jurisdictions. Garland’s reluctance to aggressively pursue justice didn’t just slow progress—it gave Trump and his allies precious time to regroup, radicalize millions further, and continue poisoning the political discourse.

This wasn’t caution. This wasn’t prudence. It was cowardice. And the consequences are staggering.

Garland’s inaction allowed Trump to remain the dominant figure in American politics. His failure sent a chilling message to the nation: that the powerful don’t face the same accountability as everyone else. Public faith in the Department of Justice—a cornerstone of democracy—has been shattered. Millions of Americans now question whether the rule of law even applies to the rich and well-connected. Trumpism, with its lies, hatred, and authoritarianism, has taken root, not because Trump is uniquely brilliant, but because Garland’s inaction allowed it to fester unchecked.

The damage Garland has done won’t just last a few years. America will suffer the consequences of his failures for decades, if not a century. Millions of Americans no longer believe in democracy or the rule of law, not because Trump convinced them, but because Garland’s inaction allowed them to believe he might be right.

The Attorney General had a moral obligation to act—not cautiously, not incrementally, but decisively. His job wasn’t just to follow procedure; it was to protect the republic. And he didn’t. He squandered the chance to stop the descent into chaos. He watched from the sidelines as Trump’s propaganda machine rewrote the narrative. His failure to act with the urgency the moment demanded is an unforgivable betrayal of the American people.

Merrick Garland will not be remembered as a protector of justice or a defender of democracy. He will be remembered as the man who stood by while democracy burned, paralyzed by fear, and too timid to act. His legacy is failure. History will not forgive him. Neither should we.

Do you agree?