President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday, 7 January, confirmed Judge Merrick Garland as US Attorney General. Garland is known to be a centrist judge and is from the Washington Federal Appeals Court. His nomination to the Supreme Court was denied by Republicans in 2016, reported AFP.
Biden’s other key picks for the Justice Department are Lisa Monaco for deputy attorney general, Vanita Gupta for associate attorney general and Kristen Clarke as assistant attorney general for the civil rights division.
Monaco was the first woman to head the National Security Division in the Justice Department. Gupta and Clarke are civil rights advocates, reported The New York Times.
Judge Garland will have to preside over some important cases such as the tax case of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, investigating into Trump and his campaign’s involvement to Russia, voting rights, etc, reported New York Times.
Who Is Judge Garland?
President Bill Clinton appointed Judge Garland to the appeals court in 1997, and he served as its chief judge from 2013 to February 2020.
Judge Merrick Garland currently serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was also the Chief Judge for seven years from 2013, according to Biden’s Transition team’s statement.
“A fair-minded and independent jurist, Judge Garland has spent more than 23 years pursuing our nation’s ideal of equal justice under law,” said the statement.
The Judge is seen as ‘politically moderate’ according to New York Times who cited his past record of criminal cases, where the judge has leaned towards police and prosecutors over the accused. In another significant case, Garland leaned towards the government in the Guantánamo Bay detainee cases which involved civil rights.
(With inputs from AFP and New York Times)
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