Democratic Senator Calls Garland a ‘Coward’ in Handling of January 6 Investigations, Wants Portrait Removed From Justice Building

A prominent Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate, Senator Ruben Gallego, laid into former Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday for his handling of the investigations into President Trump and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mr. Gallego says Mr. Garland’s portrait ought to be removed from the Justice Department. Mr. Gallego won his seat in Arizona in 2024 despite Mr. Trump carrying his state that same day, leading many to believe that his electoral prowess and his personal story would serve the party well in 2028. Mr. Gallego grew up the son of an immigrant single mother who later went on to graduate from Harvard and serve in the Marines during the Global War on Terror.During an event with the American Economic Liberties Project on Wednesday, Mr. Gallego laid into Mr. Garland for what he saw as a slow-walking of the investigations into the circumstances around January 6th. He argues that everyone from the rioters themselves to the organizations involved in pushing theories about how to overturn the 2020 result to Mr. Trump himself should have been put under a microscope much more quickly. “The biggest mistake we [made] post-Jannuary 6th … was that we didn’t move fast enough in holding January 6th Republicans, the president, everyone up and down the organizations that were helping out, accountable,” Mr. Gallego said. “It took way too damn long.”“I do blame Merrick Garland, 100 percent,” the Arizona senator added. “I think he was a coward and if I could ever take down his photo from the [DOJ], I will gladly do it because he was willing to sacrifice our democracy for the institution of the DOJ. There is no DOJ without democracy.”Mr. Garland was chosen to serve as President Biden’s attorney general after Senate Republicans scuttled his nomination to be a Supreme Court justice in 2016. Mr. Biden said at the time that he believed the then-judge would have the “integrity” to not do the political bidding of the sitting president. Nearly two years after he was nominated, Mr. Garland appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, to investigate Mr. Trump for a host of reasons. Mr. Smith was charged with investigating whether or not Mr. Trump illegally or improperly retained classified information after leaving the White House in 2021, or if he had played any kind of role in fomenting the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.Mr. Gallego says tapping Mr. Smith nearly two years after the attack on the Capitol allowed Mr. Trump and his allies to “slow-walk” the investigative and prosecutorial processes in order for Mr. Trump to return to the White House without any federal criminal convictions. “They won. They won. They beat us,” Mr. Gallego said of the GOP. “When we have power, we have to move fast. We have to move fast.”He used Mr. Garland as an example of what happens when Democrats do not move quickly to achieve certain goals, whether that be holding individuals accountable or by delivering for voters so that they can retain power. At the event Wednesday, he urged those who are opposed to Mr. Trump to begin laying out plans for how the next Democratic administration can deliver again. “Republicans … had their plan coming in,” he said. “Democrats and our allies … should we get a kind of pro-consumer administration and a trifecta need to have a plan right away to move fast and we need to get it done within the first two years so we don’t find ourselves in a situation like we did with January 6th.”

Democratic Senator Calls Garland a ‘Coward’ in Handling of January 6 Investigations, Wants Portrait Removed From Justice Building

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