A Stinging Setback for Merrick Garland as Trump Gives Plum Job to January 6 Defendant Who Was Prosecuted by Biden’s Justice Department

The naming of a pardoned January 6 defendant, Jared Wise, to the Trump administration underscores the extent to which Attorney General Garland’s legacy — marked by prosecutions of President Trump and his supporters — has been repudiated by the 47th president.Mr. Wise, a former FBI agent who was accused of inciting protesters at the Capitol to kill police officers, now serves as counselor to the director, Ed Martin, of the Department of Justice’s Weaponization Working Group. That body was convened by Attorney General Bondi to root out “abuses of the criminal justice process” and probe “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” — like, allegedly, those against Mr. Trump.The working group is now being led by Mr. Trump’s former nominee to be the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin. Mr. Wise will report to him. The indictment against Mr. Wise alleged that he told protesters at the Capitol, “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!,” in respect of police officers and that he compared law enforcement officials to the Gestapo. He faced four misdemeanor charges.According to the New York Times Mr. Wise worked in counterterrorism and public corruption at FBI field offices at both the District of Columbia and New York. He also served overseas in Israel, where he worked with the Palestinian Authority, and in Libya, where he helped investigate the 2012 terrorist attacks at Benghazi. A source close to Mr. Martin tells the Sun that Mr. Wise is a “good man.” Mr. Wise was on trial when Mr. Trump pardoned him and more than 1,500 other January 6 defendants who were charged, convicted, or pleaded guilty for the 2021 events at the Capitol. The sentences of a small number of others were commuted. With one stroke of a Sharpie, Mr. Trump undid the results of one of the largest law enforcement efforts in American history, one overseen by Mr. Garland. He called it “one of the most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in the Justice Department’s history.”The aggressive investigation and prosecutions were popular among elected Democrats, who often described the Capitol unrest as an “insurrection” and a grave threat to American democracy. It was deeply unpopular among Mr. Trump’s MAGA base, who felt unfairly persecuted and contended that the sentences meted out to those who were convicted and pleaded guilty were unduly harsh. Mr. Trump has moved with vigor to undo Mr. Garland’s January 6 prosecutions, and his actions have gone beyond the plethora of pardons. Last week Ms. Bondi fired three career prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases. That followed requests for information from the team of FBI agents who investigated the protests at the Capitol. Lawyers who accepted secondments to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team have also been given pink slips once Mr. Trump returned to office. Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on August 1, 2023, at Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesAmong the subjects of the working group’s scrutiny are “Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff,” all of whom ultimately reported to Mr. Garland and President Biden. It was Mr. Garland who appointed Mr. Smith in November 2022, two days after Mr. Trump declared his intention to retake the White House. The special counsel was tasked with investigating Mr. Trump for election interference and the storage of documents at Mar-a-Lago.While Mr. Smith charged Mr. Trump in both cases, he failed to secure a conviction, or even to make it to opening statements at trial. Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Mr. Garland unlawfully appointed Mr. Smith, disqualified the special counsel, and dismissed the more than three-dozen charges against Mr. Trump. Mr. Garland, a former federal judge and a nominee for the Supreme Court under President Obama, contends that he would never make such a “basic mistake about the law.”Messrs. Smith and Garland’s other prosecution of Mr. Trump, for January 6, likewise ended in frustration. The Supreme Court held in Trump v. United States that official presidential acts are presumptively immune from prosecution, and unofficial ones are bereft of such protection. That repudiates the position taken by Mr. Biden’s DOJ, which maintained that presidents do not possess any protection from criminal prosecution.Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Harris in 2024’s presidential election meant that he gained not only the White House but also the absolute immunity from prosecution that is afforded to sitting presidents. The DOJ takes the position that sitting presidents are “categorically” immune, which put an end to both of Mr. Smith’s cases. The special counsel, though, contended to the end that Mr. Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power,” and that “but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”The Washington Post reported last December that as Mr. Biden’s time in office drew to a close the 46th president reflected that he “should never have picked” Mr. Garland to be his attorney general. Among the reasons for regret was that the prosecutor waited too long to criminally charge Mr. Trump. Mr. Garland has returned to private legal practice as a partner at Arnold & Porter, where he worked before joining the DOJ.The firm declares that he “brings a unique depth of experience to the practice of law.”

A Stinging Setback for Merrick Garland as Trump Gives Plum Job to January 6 Defendant Who Was Prosecuted by Biden’s Justice Department

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