President Joe Biden and his inner circle have grown increasingly dissatisfied with Attorney General Merrick Garland, with sources indicating the frustration stems from the handling of the special counsel’s report by Robert Hur.
Hur’s report, which involved an investigation into Biden’s management of classified documents discovered at his think tank and home, concluded without charges against the president. However, it is the rationale behind this decision—Biden’s portrayal as an individual with diminished mental faculties—that has purportedly sparked discontent.
“This has been building for a while,” said one senior Biden adviser. “No one is happy.”
Close advisers to Biden imply that Hur exceeded his mandate with unnecessarily explicit characterizations of the president’s state of mind. There is a belief among these advisers that Garland ought to have intervened, insisting on revisions to the published report. Discussions in White House meetings also have raised questions about the initial necessity for appointing a special counsel, although Biden had publicly supported this decision.
Further complicating matters, the president and top advisers may be considering a potential AG replacement in Biden’s second term, according to those familiar with the internal discussions.
The gradually mounting disapproval of Garland appears to stem from several incidents, including the lengthy investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter. The president expressed concerns that any undue delay might exacerbate Hunter’s addiction struggles and felt Garland should not have yielded to external pressure and appointed a special counsel, yielding to external pressure.
There’s also speculation that had Garland acted more promptly in investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged election interference, subsequent legal actions could have been further along.
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment. However, a former senior DOJ official suggested that executive privilege over sections of Hur’s report was an option the White House could have exercised but chose not to. They contended that had Garland made edits to the report, he would’ve faced a congressional explanation for such redactions.
The official noted that a clearer initial explanation from the president’s office regarding the classified documents could have averted the need for a special counsel, which was partially prompted by the inconsistent early narratives.
“The way in which the White House story kept changing at the outset made it much more difficult for the Justice Department to resist having a special counsel,” said a former administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Had there been a very clear story at the beginning, it would have been easier.”
Against the backdrop of the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks, Biden chose Garland as his attorney general with the intent to reaffirm the Department of Justice’s independence—a quality perceived as compromised prior to his tenure. During his announcement, Biden specifically addressed Garland’s allegiance, not to him but to the principles of justice. Yet some Democrats and affiliates fear Garland may be overemphasizing his impartiality, thereby compromising other aspects of his role.
“Garland is far and away Biden’s worst appointee by an order of magnitude,” Robert Kuttner, co-founder of the liberal American Prospect. “And we all pay the price. If Biden goes down the drain because Garland has mishandled the investigation of Trump and gave Republicans a weapon … then the country pays the price. It’s not just that Biden gets punished for the stupidity of appointing Garland.”
