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Welcome to Talking Feds, a round table that brings together prominent figures from government,

law, and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day.

I'm Harry Litman and this is our quarterly review of the State of Play at the Department of Justice.

Mayor Garland has been the nation's attorney general for some eight months,

and while his leadership and approach to the job may have remained fairly steady,

political wins have swirled around him in different directions.

The department finds itself taking heat from a range of critics,

most notably the chief judge of the DC District Court.

Focused on its supposed lackluster pursuit of the January 6th insurrectionists,

up to and including perhaps former President Trump and his circle.

Members of Congress, who in a very real way were the victims of the crimes of January 6th,

are quietly gripping over the department's arms-length approach to issues that involved them.

In other areas, Garland has moved to put his stamp on the department,

announcing new policies for cybercrime, white collar prosecutions, and drugs on the dark web.

And John Durham, whom Bill Barre appointed as a special counsel to investigate the investigators.

That is the FBI's decision in 2016 to look into Trump in Russia, continues to putter around the

department, assembling what in the previous administration Republicans disparaged

as process crimes of lying to investigators.

And we have our regular panel of DOJ files to dull out the tough love on Marik Garland and his 100,000

plus employees. And they are, of course, Katie Banner, who covers the Department of Justice for

...