Democrats blame Merrick Garland’s slow Trump investigation for election loss: ‘Fatal mistake’
Democrats have begun blaming U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for the 2024 election after they argued he waited too long initiate an investigation in the newly elected President Donald Trump.
Garland announced in 2022 that he was seeking special counsel Jack Smith to investigate alleged attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Although Garland said his decision at the time was based on Trump announcing his candidacy for president, some Democrats said the committee’s Jan. 6 findings should have been more than enough to launch an investigation.
“Garland only prosecuted after he was actually compelled by the Jan. 6 committee report and the criminal request,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York. he told HuffPost. “The evidence used by the January 6 committee was available from the beginning.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., was one of many Democratic lawmakers to criticize the Justice Department for President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“If they had continued with that persecution, I think he would have been convicted and we would now have another president,” he added. “Merrick Garland wasted a year.”
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California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Jan. 6 committee member, also believed Garland took too long to begin the investigation.
“I didn’t realize they weren’t looking at the whole picture,” Lofgren told HuffPost. “I think they were looking at pedestrians.”
California Sen. Adam Schiff was more critical, telling HuffPost that the Department of Justice (DOJ) “acted expeditiously when it came to the people who broke into the building, but they were at a higher level, they waited almost a year.”
“It was a fatal mistake,” Schiff said.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith agreed, saying, “I think the department has been so focused on being by the book and being so clear that there’s no political interference.”
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a special prosecutor to investigate Trump in 2022. (Ting Shen/Getty Images)
She added: “I’m really worried that, you know, he’s going to become president, and he’s going to pardon a bunch of people and [a] the great kind of cover-up of what happened will continue.”
Apparently it’s President Biden himself regretted choosing Garland as attorney general, also believing he moved too slowly in prosecuting Trump.
Other Democrats were more lenient with the Justice Department, placing more blame on Trump for changing the narrative on Jan. 6.
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“This is not about the DOJ. This is about Trump being successful in rewriting history,” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch said. “He confirmed the people who attacked the Capitol, and I don’t think a month earlier, a month later, six months earlier, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
President Biden reportedly regrets Garland taking too long to investigate Trump. (Jack Gruber-USA TODAY)
Smith is expected to resign before Trump’s second inauguration on January 20. It is required of him submit a report summarizing its findings to the Department of Justice along with any recommendations for prosecution or dismissal. However, the Ministry of Justice’s long-standing policy is against indicting the current president.
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