Merrick Garland’s Catholic Problem

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

It must not be easy to be Joe Biden’s attorney general. In that capacity, AG Merrick Garland is Biden’s chief lawyer, charged with carrying out the mission of the Department of Justice, on the one hand, and the agenda of Joe Biden, on the other.
That’s an impossible task. Consider: According to its website, “the mission of the Department of Justice is to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”
The values of “independence,” “impartiality,” “the public’s trust,” and “honesty and integrity” — these are paramount.
They are also prime targets of homewrecker Joe Biden’s agenda.
And Garland has to defend him.
When Garland was sworn in some two years ago, he had a decision to make. Would he support the stated mission of the Department of Justice and confront Biden on the countless occasions where Biden has violated the law? Or would he serve as Biden’s hatchet man, using the consummate power of the Justice Department to further the Biden agenda?
Unfortunately, Garland chose to go with Joe.
Since then, the rule of law has become politicized, equal justice is passé, and public trust in the Department has collapsed. Garland’s Justice Department has waged an open and hostile war against parents, families, and religion.
Two years ago, Garland told a Senate hearing that White Supremacist terrorism was “the top domestic violent extremist threat we face.” He then sent FBI spies to monitor parents who dared to speak at meetings of their local school boards, because they were apparently the “white supremacists” that Garland was constantly looking for, but could never find.
When the FBI accused pro-life demonstrator Mark Houck, Houck offered to turn himself in. Instead, the Justice Department sent an FBI SWAT team to raid Houck’s home and terrorize his family. After Houck a federal jury cleared Houck of the concocted charge, Sen. Ted Cruz berated Garland: “This wasn’t law enforcement. This was theater. This was the Biden DOJ saying, ‘If you’re our political opponent, we’re sending stormtroopers after you’,” Cruz said.
Garland said it wasn’t his fault. He blamed the FBI.
Sen. Mike Lee asked Garland, “DOJ has announced charges against 34 individuals for blocking access to or vandalizing abortion clinics, and there have been over 81 reported attacks on pregnancy centers, 130 attacks on Catholic churches since the leak of the Dobbs decision, and only two individuals have been charged. So how do you explain this disparity?”
“We apply the law equally,” Garland answered — but the pro-lifers were evidently easier to catch. “Seeing the person who did it is quite easy,” he said. “Those who are attacking the pregnancy resources centers, which is a horrid thing to do, are doing this at night in the dark.”
Earlier this year the FBI’s Richmond office developed a classified strategic plan (featuring a domestic terrorist from the Southern Poverty Law Center as a major source) to spy on “radical” orthodox Catholics and recruit informers from among the faithful. The Special Agent in Charge undoubtedly considered the policy to be consistent with Garland’s other bigoted moves. But when the plan was leaked, attorneys general from twenty states raised the roof.
Exposed, an embarrassed Garland called the operation “appalling.”
He blamed the FBI.
When pro-abortion mobs threatened Supreme Court justices who had joined the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and demonstrated illegally in front of their residences, the FBI never sent SWAT teams to break down the doors of their homes.
They weren’t even arrested.
“Why not?” asked the senators.
Garland blamed the federal marshals.

Revenge, Envy’s Silent Partner

In my years on Capitol Hill, I staffed hearings on hundreds of presidential nominations that required Senate confirmation. Once in a while, a nominee’s hearing would be delayed, even repeatedly. It was an aggravating experience for all of them.
But some nominees never got a hearing at all. Merrick Garland was one of them. And he was aggravated indeed.
Garland had served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia since 1997. A month after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, Obama nominated Garland to succeed him.
But it was not to be. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the choice should lie with the next president.
At the time, Garland was serving on a Federal Appeals Court that is considered to be second in importance only to the Supreme Court itself. His position was secure, but that was not enough. To be denied a seat on the Supreme Court by something as frivolous as the timing of a presidential election undoubtedly troubled him. It might have even aroused a modicum of quiet rage.
An example comes to mind. About a month ago my wife met a fellow tennis player at a practice class. When the gentleman heard her last name and found out that I was her husband, he erupted.
This fellow’s dear friend, one Richard Viets, had been a career ambassador in the 1980s. In 1987, he was nominated to be ambassador to Portugal, a very plum job.
But a member of Viets’ own embassy staff contacted us with proven allegations of malfeasance. My boss at the time, Sen. Jesse Helms, blocked Viets’ nomination, and Viets never went to Portugal. (Note: And the Deep State at State made sure that that honest employee never got another promotion.)
Thirty-five years later, the rage continues.
Seven years ago, when Sen. McConnell blocked his nomination, Garland stayed on the Court of Appeals while President Trump named Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett soon followed.
One can only imagine Judge Garland, a staunch pro-abortionist, seething in his chambers on Constitution Avenue while, five blocks away, these three inferior entities not only sat on the Supreme Court, but eventually joined in the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade!
And five of the pallbearers for Roe v. Wade were Catholic! How dare they impose their religious beliefs while sitting in such an august position that should have been Merrick Garland’s!
When the Senate confirmed Merrick Garland as Joe Biden’s attorney general, thirty Republicans voted against him.
But they couldn’t stop him this time, and now he’s getting his revenge.
“A covetous person…is a serving of idols” (Eph. 5:5), says St. Paul.
Merrick Garland serves an idol. It’s not the Constitution. It’s Merrick Garland.
Envy is a sin against the Tenth Commandment. The Catholic Catechism calls it a capital sin.
Augustine saw envy as “the diabolical sin” from which “are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity” (CCC, n. 2539).
Marxists use envy as the engine of revolution. While the kommissars use envy to tempt the masses, envy can also tempt the kommissars as well.
In fact, it always does.
“Through the devil’s envy death entered the world,” the Good Book says (Wisdom 2:24).
But wait — what about “Diversity”? “Equity”? “Inclusion”?
Equity doesn’t apply to folks like Garland. Hey, he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard!
Thomas Sowell calls such people “the anointed.” They are by definition deserving. And when they don’t get what they “deserve,” they are just as susceptible to the deadly vice of envy as the rest of us.
And then they get revenge.
Vladimir Lenin’s brother Alexander was shot in 1887 by the Czar. Revenge!
Merrick Garland was denied his seat on the Supreme Court, while Catholics got confirmed. Revenge!
And “Catholic Joe” Biden? If Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world, would Joe even let him finish before he ran and told “Dr. Jill” of his good fortune?