Professor Andrew Kent and co-authors Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes published a Lawfare article discussing Attorney General Merrick Garland’s speech on the progress made by the DOJ this year in investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Yesterday, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered a speech reviewing the Justice Department’s efforts to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attack on the Capitol. “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law,” he insisted, “whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”
…
The attorney general focused less on giving specifics about how the Jan. 6 investigation is progressing and more on explaining the principles guiding the Justice Department’s thinking, including his own thinking on why he doesn’t want to say more. The department “will and . . . must speak through our work,” Garland explained. “Anything else jeopardizes the viability of our investigations and the civil liberties of our citizens.” Should the department behave differently and say more given the extraordinary nature of the current situation? Not according to Garland: “We conduct every investigation guided by the same norms. And we adhere to those norms even when, and especially when, the circumstances we face are not normal.”
Articulating the values that guide him is valuable. We argued previously that Garland needed to speak publicly about his vision for the department precisely because so many Americans are unfamiliar with the norms governing its work. Here, he is doing just that.
But it is also frustrating to someone looking for any kind of guidance about where this is all heading. It would be a gross overreading of what Garland said–and didn’t say–to think that the public learned anything yesterday about whether the Justice Department is criminally investigating anyone in political leadership for a supposed role in encouraging the insurrection, much less whether such people might face charges. This point includes, but is not limited to, former President Donald Trump. On all such matters, Garland remained silent.