OP-ED: Merrick Garland and the Collapse of Justice — Why History Will Remember Him as the Weakest Attorney General in Modern Times

When President Joe Biden nominated Merrick Garland in 2021, the intent was clear: restore confidence, depoliticize the Justice Department, and return integrity to a bruised institution.

Instead, four years later, the Garland era stands as a case study in how bureaucratic caution, selective enforcement, and misplaced faith in neutrality can destroy public trust in the rule of law.

Once seen as a symbol of judicial integrity, Garland’s Justice Department has become the embodiment of drift — hesitant, inconsistent, and politically tone-deaf. The nation needed an Attorney General capable of moral courage; instead, it got a technocrat trapped in process.

Merrick Garland: The Most Ineffective Attorney General in Modern U.S. History — and What Went Wrong at the DOJ

Once hailed as a stabilizing figure, Merrick Garland’s tenure as Attorney General is now widely viewed as a period of hesitation, inconsistency, and institutional decline that weakened public trust in the Department of Justice.

WASHINGTON | Merrick Garland entered the Department of Justice with a reputation as a calm, principled jurist who would restore stability after the political storms of the Trump years. Nearly four years later, critics across the political spectrum — from progressives to conservatives — argue that his cautious leadership and reluctance to act boldly have instead left the DOJ weakened, divided, and mistrusted.

Garland’s tenure, once defined by promises of restoring the rule of law, is now increasingly defined by hesitation in enforcement, politically inconsistent prosecutions, and a perception of institutional paralysis.

Analysts, legal scholars, and former prosecutors have begun referring to his DOJ as “the quietest during one of the loudest moments in American history.”