Democrats have begun blaming U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for the 2024 election after claiming he waited too long to launch an investigation into President-elect Donald Trump.
Garland announced in 2022 that he was tapping Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate alleged attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results. Although Garland said his decision at the time was based on Trump announcing his bid for the presidency, some Democrats said the Jan. 6 committee findings should have been more than enough to launch an investigation.
"Garland only started the prosecution after he was in effect forced to by the report of the Jan. 6 committee and the criminal referral," New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler told HuffPost. "The evidence the Jan. 6 committee used was available from the beginning."
"Had they proceeded with those prosecutions, I think he would have been convicted and we’d have a different president now," he added. "Merrick Garland wasted a year."
California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the Jan. 6 committee, also believed Garland took too long to begin investigating.
"I didn’t realize that they were not looking at the whole picture," Lofgren told HuffPost. "I think they were taking a look at the foot soldiers."
California Sen. Adam Schiff was more critical, telling HuffPost that the Department of Justice (DOJ) "moved with expedition when it came to the people who broke into the building, but were those at a higher level, they waited almost a year on."
"That was a fatal mistake," Schiff said.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith agreed, saying, "I think the department was so focused on being kind of by the book and being so clear that there wasn’t any political interference."
She added, "I really worry that, you know, he’ll become president, and he’s going to pardon a bunch of people and [a] great sort of whitewashing of what happened will continue."
President Biden himself reportedly regretted choosing Garland as attorney general, also believing that he moved too slowly in prosecuting Trump.
Other Democrats were more forgiving of the Justice Department, placing more blame on Trump for changing the narrative on Jan. 6.
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"This isn’t about the DOJ. This is about Trump being successful in rewriting history," Vermont Sen. Peter Welch said. "He’s validated the folks who attacked the Capitol, and I don’t think a month earlier, a month later, six months earlier, that would have made a difference."
Smith is expected to resign before Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20. He is required to submit a report summarizing his findings to the Department of Justice along with any recommendations for prosecution or declination. However, longstanding Department of Justice policy is against bringing charges against a sitting president.
