AJ Merrick Brian Garland - New Roy Marcus CohnConfirmed by Senate on March 10, 2021
Trump's Lawyer fired on /.../../../
In recent weeks, many supporters of President Joe Biden have expressed surprise and disappointment at Justice Department decisions seeming to back actions by Trump or his allies.
During a Senate budget hearing, Garland said he was aware of the controversy triggered by the Justice Department’s actions defending Trump in a civil suit and seeking to maintain secrecy around memos sent to former Attorney General William Barr as he responded to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The Justice Department never should have tried to defend Donald Trump in a civil lawsuit filed by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. When Carroll made her rape allegation public, then-President Trump called her a liar. Carroll responded by suing Trump for defamation, seeking damages.
Trump was initially represented by private counsel. But his Justice Department intervened to have the case moved to U.S. District Court and argued that it should have been dismissed, saying that Trump was a government “employee” acting within “the scope of his employment” when he verbally attacked Carroll, and thus enjoyed immunity for his defamatory words.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled against those claims in October and ordered that Carroll’s lawsuit be allowed to proceed. But Garland’s Justice Department is continuing to defend Trump, even though Kaplan determined that the case should be seen as a private matter between two individuals.
Hopefully the Justice Department ultimately loses the case and Carroll gets her day in court. But Garland, by staying the course, is sending a powerful message: The Justice Department doesn’t “belong” to Trump or Joe Biden or any one president. The meaning of the law does not change depending on who is in power. We should all swallow hard and accept Garland’s general commitment to some measure of continuity, because the alternative can be much worse.