Attorney General Merrick Garland, Interviewed by Jane Mayer
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2021
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the 2021 New Yorker Festival, the investigative journalist Jane Mayer sat down for a conversation with Merrick Garland, the longtime federal judge now serving as President Biden’s Attorney General. Mayer asked about the central role that the Department of Justice plays in some of the most critical issues of our time: racial justice, domestic terrorism, threats to voting rights and abortion access, and the looming power of big tech companies.
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| 0:47.9 | I'm Dorothy Wickenden. |
| 0:49.8 | On today's Politics and More Podcast, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer talks with Attorney General |
| 0:55.1 | Merrick Garland. |
| 0:56.7 | They'll discuss the role of the Justice Department on issues ranging from racial justice |
| 1:00.9 | to abortion access. |
| 1:05.9 | No Attorney General of the United States has ever had what you'd call an easy job. But Merrick Garland's |
| 1:13.2 | brief is maybe something else. Donald Trump tried his hardest to make the Justice Department |
| 1:18.5 | into his personal legal team. So Garland now has to reestablish independence at the agency, |
| 1:24.6 | but he can't exactly avoid politics. He has to decide, for example, how to |
| 1:29.2 | prosecute the January 6 rioters who try to overturn the election results. He also has to figure out |
| 1:34.8 | how prosecutors should handle Trump officials who may have broken the law. He can hardly |
| 1:40.1 | avoid the current legal battle over abortion that's engulfed the country. |
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