Merrick Garland had the right to remain silent -- he should have used it.
Instead, the attorney general of the United States, a man who has spent three years overseeing what used to be called "justice system" decided to take to the pages of one of the country's biggest newspapers to tell Americans they haven't been seeing what they've actually been seeing.
And it's already backfiring.
In a commentary published Tuesday by The Washington Post, Garland attacked his fellow citizens who have watched as his Justice Department has given terrorist treatment to parents worried about their kids education and to pro-life groups guilty of believing babies in the womb deserve protection and gone after former President Donald Trump with special prosecutor Jack Smith in a blatant effort to get President Joe Biden re-elected.
And he claimed with almost laughable audacity that it's all above reproach.
"The Justice Department makes decisions about criminal investigations based only on the facts and the law," Garland wrote.
"We do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law -- nothing more, nothing less."
Seriously? It would be hard to find more than a handful of Americans -- regardless of their political sympathies -- who would believe that in the face of the record Garland & Co. have compiled during the Biden administration. There's barely room to go into all the reasons the assertion is so absurd.
This is an administration where the two-tiered system of justice is on display on a daily basis. First son Hunter Biden has been a walking repudiation of law and order for more than a decade, but has gotten kid-gloves treatment by Garland's department for years.
His conviction Tuesday of firearms charges doesn't erase the fact that Garland's Justice Department had to be forced to take some action against the chronic law-breaker -- but only after it offered a sweetheart plea deal that was torpedoed by a federal judge with her eye on the ball.
In fact, a cynic might even suggest that it was the occasion of Hunter's expected conviction -- how could even a Wilmington, Delaware, jury find him not guilty in the face of evidence that included Hunter's own autobiography? -- that was behind Garland's decision to publish the piece. After all, the jury's decision, won by a federal prosecutor, looks almost honest.
But it wasn't fooling anyone.
Mollie Hemingway, author, conservative journalist and editor-in-chief of The Federalist, led the way with mockery.
"Threatening Americans that they better stop criticizing the corrupt DOJ should probably take care of the DOJ’s image problem with the American people," she wrote in a post on X.
Threatening Americans that they better stop criticizing the corrupt DOJ should probably take care of the DOJ’s image problem with the American people pic.twitter.com/oPphbGctrk
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) June 11, 2024
She had plenty of company:
