WASHINGTON — Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge and a former Supreme Court nominee, is President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to be the next attorney general, according to people familiar with the selection process.
Biden is expected to announce Garland’s appointment on Thursday, along with appointments for other senior posts in the Department of Justice, including former Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general and former Justice Department civil rights chief Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general.
Garland would face confirmation by a U.S. Senate that denied him even a hearing when President Barack Obama nominated him to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to consider the nomination, however, saying the president who won the November election should get the pick. President Donald Trump prevailed in that contest and filled Scalia’s seat with Neil M. Gorsuch.
A former top Justice Department official who oversaw the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, Garland has served on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 1997. He is considered a moderate and is well-respected by fellow judges and Republicans, and would be expected to win easy confirmation.
Current and former federal prosecutors say that among Garland’s top priorities will be to improve morale at the Justice Department. Over the last four years, the agency has found itself caught in the political crossfire over an investigation into Russia’s election interference in 2016 and probes involving the president and his associates. Trump has spent the last four years blasting the department’s leaders for failing to investigate his political rivals and to halt probes that he has falsely called witch hunts and hoaxes.
Although he is regarded as a centrist, Garland would be expected to execute progressive elements of Biden administration criminal justice policy, including cracking down on domestic extremists, enhancing the enforcement of civil and voting rights laws, and cracking down on polluters.
