Merrick garland biography channel

WASHINGTON -- During hearings on Merrick Garland's nomination to be President Joe Biden's attorney general, the longtime federal appeals court judge told senators in 2021 that he hoped to “turn down the volume” on the public discourse about the Justice Department and return to the days when the agency was not the “center of partisan disagreement.”

It didn’t go as planned.

Garland came in with a mission to calm the waters and restore the department's reputation for independence after four turbulent years under Republican President Donald Trump, who fired one attorney general and feuded with another.

Now the soft-spoken Garland, who was denied a seat on the Supreme Court by the Republican-led Senate before Trump's 2016 election, is leaving with the department under siege on all sides and his own legacy in question.

Those on the right are incensed over the depa