Biden is considering making Merrick Garland, denied Supreme Court seat, the attorney general
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By Arno Rosenfeld November 20, 2020
Judge Merrick Garland is being considered for attorney general by President-elect Joe Biden, according to an NPR report.
Garland, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama but the Republican-led Senate refused to hold a vote on his nomination.
NPR reported that two people close to Biden said the former vice president was considering nominating Garland to restore a semblance of independence to the Justice Department, which has become increasingly politicized during the Trump administration. Garland is widely considered a moderate.
He also has extensive experience at the Department of Justice, where he worked in the 1980s and 1990s. Garland oversaw the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Garland cited his Jewish immigrant roots during a speech in the Rose Garden after Obama nominated him to replace Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.
“My family deserves much of the credit for the path that led me here,” Garland said. “My grandparents left the Pale of Settlement at the border of western Russia and Eastern Europe in the early 1900s, fleeing anti-Semitism and hoping to make a better life for their children in America.”
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