The Inevitable Indictment of Donald Trump [View all]

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/merrick-garland-donald-trump-investigation-indictment/671683/

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https://archive.ph/UCZnw

As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur. As a driver, his friends say, he is maddeningly slow and almost comically fastidious.

And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, he is a hyper-prudential institutionalist who would like nothing more than to restore—quietly and deliberately—the Justice Department’s reputation for probity, process, and apolitical dispassion. Which is why it is so difficult for me to imagine him delighting in the choice he now faces: whether to become the first attorney general in American history to indict a former president.

But this is what I believe he is preparing himself to do.

I have been observing Garland closely for months. I’ve talked with his closest friends and most loyal former clerks and deputies. I’ve carefully studied his record. I’ve interviewed Garland himself. And I’ve reached the conclusion that his devotion to procedure, his belief in the rule of law, and in particular his reverence for the duties, responsibilities, and traditions of the U.S. Department of Justice will cause him to make the most monumental decision an attorney general can make.

Let me be absolutely clear: Garland did not tell me he was going to indict Donald Trump. In fact, he did not tip his hand to me in any way—he is far too cautious to signal his intentions to even his closest friends, much less a reporter. Nor did his top aides suggest the announcement of an indictment. When his department says that it doesn’t discuss ongoing cases, it means it—at least in this case.

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