Attorney General Merrick Garland is facing some criticism from Democrats because his Justice Department has sided with the Trump administration on several matters in court, including the fact that it announced this week it will continue to defend Trump in a defamation suit filed by E. Jean Carroll, who has also alleged he raped her.
The progressive watchdog group Revolving Door Project is tracking the lawsuits against the Trump administration that the Biden Justice Department has inherited and found that the latter is backing the former in at least a dozen. Revolving Door Project's founder, Jeff Hauser, told The Hill why he thinks that is.
"Garland's approach seems to be to minimize as much as possible any discontinuity in position after the election," he said. "He wants to make the transition from Trump to Biden as small as possible in the Justice Department. And so across an extremely wide array of issue areas, the Garland Justice Department is reaching legal conclusions which are incongruous for the Biden administration and for where the vast majority of center-left and progressive lawyers and legal scholars are."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What Hauser is less sure of is where Garland might draw the line. "The question I have for Garland is what would we have to learn about [former Attorneys General] Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr for them to lose the benefit of the doubt with you?" he told The Hill. Read more at The Hill.
-
Denmark's 'pornographic' mermaid statue is in hot waterUnder the Radar Town will reportedly remove voluptuous Big Mermaid, despite statue being 'arguably a bit less naked' than Copenhagen monument the Little Mermaid
-
August 10 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include a global plastics problem, GOP enthusiasm over tariffs, and more
-
5 thin-skinned cartoons about shooting the messengerCartoons Artists take on unfavorable weather, a look in the mirror, and more
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting voteSpeed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts
