“The villain here is Merrick Garland.”
But Biden and people on Team Biden aren’t only pissed at Hur. They’re apparently also livid with the guy who appointed him as special counsel, who himself was appointed by the president: Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Per Politico: Joe Biden has told aides and outside advisers that Attorney General Merrick Garland did not do enough to rein in a special counsel report stating that the president had diminished mental faculties, according to two people close to the president, as White House frustration with the head of the Justice Department grows…. Biden and his closest advisers believe Hur went well beyond his purview and was gratuitous and misleading in his descriptions, according to those two people, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. And they put part of the blame on Garland, who they say should have demanded edits to Hur’s report, including around the descriptions of Biden’s faltering memory. According to Politico, Biden has not “weighed in on Garland’s future,” but many of the president’s top advisers believe the AG would be unlikely to keep his job in a potential second term. In addition to reportedly believing that Garland only appointed a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden due to outside pressure, Biden has recently “grumbled to aides and advisers that had Garland moved sooner in his investigation into former president Donald Trump’s election interference, a trial may already be underway or even have concluded,” according to two individuals familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the DOJ declined Politico’s request for comment, though a former senior Justice Department official pushed back on Team Biden’s contention that Garland could have handled the situation differently, saying that if the AG had edited Hur’s reports, he would have had to explain why he did so to Congress. Supporters of the president, however, disagree. “I had refused to criticize him, but appointing Hur, who is obviously a Republican tool and who issued what I think is an irresponsible report which violates DOJ standards, was a mistake,” Robert Shrum, a Democratic consultant, told Politico. “I think Garland will be criticized by historians. We’ve had some terrific attorneys general and some not-so-good attorneys general. And I think he’s going to rank in the not so good.” And according to one Biden donor, Garland is trying too hard to maintain the appearance of impartiality. “What Democrats do is they bend over backwards not to look partisan, and then they end up hiring people that are partisan but in the other direction,” this person said. “There’s no question in my mind that the villain here is Merrick Garland.” Meanwhile, as Robert Kuttner, cofounder of The American Prospect, noted, this whole thing is bigger than just the president and his AG. “If Biden goes down the drain because Garland has mishandled the investigation of Trump and gave Republicans a weapon…then the country pays the price,” he told Politico. “It’s not just that Biden gets punished for the stupidity of appointing Garland.” Trump defender Alan Dershowitz says the Hur report on Biden was horses--t Marco Rubio has no issue with a candidate for president saying he’d encourage Russia to attack NATO countries The modern Republican Party right here Elsewhere! Trump asks Supreme Court to keep Jan. 6 trial on hold, citing 2024 election The Washington Post • Read More Defense Secretary Austin in critical care unit after hospital return Politico • Read More Donald Trump’s NATO Comments Might Blow Up in His Face Vanity Fair • Read More RFK Jr.’s Super Bowl Ad Was a Bizarre Attempt at Nostalgia Vanity Fair • Read More Donald Trump is considering backing his daughter-in-law for RNC cochair NYT • Read More Jeff Bezos will save over $600 million in taxes by moving to Miami CNBC • Read More Trump Jab at Haley’s Missing Husband Backfires Spectacularly New York • Read More Hate Valentine’s Day? There’s a Market for You Too. NYT • Read More
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