General Discussion

What follows are where the facts stand as Garland’s permanent record.
Despite the context of Republican Senate delays, federal court delays, a Florida federal judge's pro-defense delays, and SCOTUS's purposeful delays, Garland did his damn job.


Attorney General Merrick Garland In Review:


GARLAND was confirmed 2 MONTHS after Biden -- Republican holdup

Garland's #2 was confirmed by Congress 3 MONTHS after Biden -- Republican holdup;
then Lisa Monaco immediately operationalized the DOJ's eight major divisions.


Mar 10 2021: Merrick Garland confirmed as AG by Congress
Mar 11 2021: AG Garland assumes office

Apr 21 2021: Deputy AG Lisa O. Monaco assumes office

At that point Garland had already started on the Jan 6 investigation, so "delay detractors" are off by over a year because the FBI IS the DOJ, and Garland's FBI began arrests on Jan 6 2021 and continued DOJ convictions until December 2024.

During the first months of FBI arrest actions, Garland was prosecuting new and outstanding cases, all while rebuilding the personnel of his assistant AG’s, deputies, and 8 Division heads. And meanwhile...

Republicans STILL made Garland wait months for his division heads' confirmations;
Republicans did not confirm Kenneth Polite to head the DOJ's Criminal Division until July 2021!

January 6 2022: Garland stated:
“So far, we have
-- issued over 5,000 subpoenas and search warrants,
-- seized approximately 2,000 devices,
-- pored through over 20,000 hours of video footage, and
-- searched through an estimated 15 terabytes of data...
-- received over 300,000 tips from ordinary citizens, who have been our indispensable partners in this effort.”

Garland actions were the core contribution to Special Counsel investigations.
Garland handed off GARLAND's documents case to Jack Smith on the day Smith was sworn in.
What Garland handed over:

Jan 2022
— 15 boxes found in the storage area
— the FBI found more than 11,000 government records at Maralago — of those
— 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, of those:
— 67 docs marked Confidential
— 92 docs marked Secret
— 25 docs marked Top Secret
markings reflected that docs were subject to sensitive compartments and dissemination controls
used to restrict access to material in the interest of national security, including
HCS(Humint Control system),
FISA(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act),
ORCON (originator controlled),
NORORN (could be NOFORN, no foreign national), AND
SI(Special Intelligence)

May 10 2022
— The first 100 documents marked as classified totaled over 700 pages [National Archives letter to Trump attorney, May 10, 2022]
May 11 2022: Garland convenes four DOJ Grand juries, one for Jan 6 convened until March 2024
— Grand Jury subpoenas Trump for documents

June 3 2022
— Trump lawyer hands over 40 boxes from Maralago storage room
— 38 docs marked Classified


June 3 2022: Garland's DOJ Grand jury subpoenas Trump for remaining classified govt documents in Maralago,
lawyers for Trump "certifying" that there were no more;
Trump stole 11,000 government docs, 300 classified docs — lawyers earlier handed over even more

July 22 2022: Garland's Grand jury testimony by Marc Short, Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff, & Short's counsel Greg Jacob

August 8 2022
— FBI warrant search of Maralago
— 103 marked Classified
— 18 marked Top Secret

The law violated: —- 18 U.S.C. 793— Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.
Penalty: Fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
More on the indictability of stolen documents:
https://www.justsecurity.org/83034/tracker-evidence-of-trumps-knowledge-and-involvement-in-retaining-mar-a-lago-documents/

Sept 2 2022: Garland's Grand jury subpoenaed testimony by Pat Cipollone,
a) one of the participants in WH meeting Dec 18 2020, that included Giuliani, Powell, Flynn, Patrick Byrne of Overstock,
b) Cipollone sat in on Jan 3 2021 DOJ official meeting with Trump, and
c) Cipollone was in direct contact with trump on Jan 6 during capitol insurrection, and did nothing when Meadows told him Trump didn’t want to interfere with rioters calling for hanging Mike Pence)
and Patrick Philbin
Sept 15 2022: Garland's Grand Jury subpoenas Mark Meadows for testimony and documents
the month of Sept 2022: Garland's DOJ issued over 40 subpoenas to people close to Trump, some of whom are
— Bill Stepien, DT’s campaign mgr; part of team to prevent certification
— Sean Dollman, DT’s campaign CFO
— Ben Williamson, Deputy of Mark Meadows,
— Boris Epshteyn, Trump's lawyer -- phone demanded; part of team to prevent certification
— Mike Lindell -- phone seized
— William Russell, WH special asst to Trump, THEN special aide to Trump in Mar-a-lago

Oct 6 2022: Garland's Grand jury calls back Greg Jacob
Oct 13 2022: Garland's Grand Jury calls back Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff

Nov 4 2022: classified docs found in Biden’s
-- Wilmington home (garage, library), (no docs in Rehoboth beach home) and
-- Penn Biden Center in DC (Richard Sauber is spec counsel to Pres Biden)
Nov 14 2022: Garland asks John Lausch (Trump appointed US Atty, Chicago) to review found Biden documents

Nov 18 2022 Garland appoints Jack Smith (3 days after Trump announces his candidacy for 2024), who inherits the records of the Garland DOJ's work.

By that very day, Nov 18 2022, Garland's DOJ had convicted more than 323 Jan 6 insurrectionists.

All of the above is what AG Merrick Garland and his DOJ did before Jack Smith.

For DU'ers triggered by the mention of AG Merrick Garland, these will forever remain the facts of Garland's Jan 6 work during his first 20 months in office -- 16 Jan 6 convictions per week.

Besides the above, what also stands is the willful ignorance of DU's Garland scapegoaters
-- of the facts of Garland's doing his damn job, and
-- of Garland's wisdom in choosing Jack Smith at the Hague as Special Counsel.


If the shoe fits...