Biden Administration Attorney General Nominee Merrick Garland has pledged not to follow in the footsteps of the Obama-Biden Administration Attorneys General and act as a “wingman” for the President.  He will almost certainly be confirmed with bipartisan support.

However, the same cannot be said about Associate Attorney General Nominee Vanita Gupta and Civil Rights Division nominee Kristin Clarke.  Arguably, Judge Garland’s toughest moment in the hearing yesterday came when “Garland appeared to lose his composure as he defended Gupta and Clarke.”

Today was Biden’s Attorney General nominee Judge Merrick Garland’s hearing.  There was not a lot of substance and listening to the Democrats speak, you would think that former Attorneys General William Barr and Jeff Sessions were the most partisan in history.  Senator Ted Cruz did a great job of pointing out who really was a partisan attorney general, President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder:

While refusing to comment on individual past AGs, AG nominee nominee Garland agrees that DOJ should not be politicized . And while not explicitly rebuking Holder, he makes clear that AGs cannot act in the fashion that Holder and his successor Lynch are accused of doing. 2/2

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) February 22, 2021

.@TedCruz: "Eric Holder described his role as attorney general as being the wingman for President Obama."

Merrick Garland: "I can assure you I do not regard myself as anything other than the lawyer for the people of the United States. I'm not the president's lawyer." pic.twitter.com/R4ifpDmrFO

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 22, 2021

In a normal world, there would be front page screaming headlines of the FBI’s complete failure regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants.  As the Obama appointee Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported on March 30:

As a result of our audit work to date and as described below, we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy. . . . our testing of FISA applications to the associated Woods Files identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications we reviewed, and interviews to date with available agents or supervisors in field offices generally have confirmed the issues we identified

In an effort to take advantage of the Tony Blair rule of politics (bury bad news during a disaster), the Mueller investigation suffered yet another blow yesterday. According to Time:

The Justice Department is moving to drop charges against two Russian companies that were accused of funding a social media campaign to sway American public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. . . .

Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering were among three companies and 13 individuals charged in 2018 by special counsel Robert Mueller in a conspiracy to spread disinformation on social media during the 2016 presidential race. The effort was aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord in the electorate, officials said. . . .

The case was one of the signature indictments from Mueller’s two-year Russia investigation.

There is a lot to unpack in Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the review of four FISA applications.  It is impossible in one short blog post to detail all of the things uncovered.  The only safe conclusion is all Americans should be upset by this report.  As one group said (emphasis added):

For instance, the litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how the secrecy shrouding the government’s one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse. . . . The FBI must also adopt higher standards for investigations involving constitutionally protected sensitive activities, such as political campaigns.

That statement is not from a Republican or a conservative group, it is from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Speaking of Carter Page, he has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal which begins:

This week, former Attorney General Eric Holder has made incredibly hypocritical comments.  While many politicians are guilty of hubris, few take it to the level that Eric Holder has done.

First, Holder attacked current Attorney General William Barr.  Holder expressed concern about Barr not being "neutral." This is especially ironic since Holder bragged he was President Obama’s "wingman."  He said this multiple times, including in 2013:  “I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.”

If journalists were remotely objective, they would praise Attorney General Bill Barr for releasing virtually the entire “Mueller report.”  On the other hand, if they were objective, they would condemn Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder for his complete stonewalling of the Fast and Furious investigation.  That said, the rare objective journalist Sharyl Attkisson is still working on getting the truth of the Eric Holder Justice Department’s Fast and Furious scandal (emphasis in original): 

Last week, President Trump authorized Attorney General Bill Barr to declassify documents related to the surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016.

Yesterday, Congressman Doug Collins, Republican Leader and Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee, entered into the Congressional Record nine more transcripts of closed-door interviews with senior officials from the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Obama-Biden Administration. They all relate to the Clinton investigation and origins of the Trump probe and so-called "campaign collusion" investigation.

This is the latest in Representative Collins's effort to offer clear and transparent information to the American public about possible bias against Mr. Trump. Previously, Representative Collins released scores of other transcripts, include the troubling testimony by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

Last night, Representative Collins tweeted his House Floor speech where he entered this information to the record:

Yesterday, Democrat Presidential Candidate and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard called Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper a “blatant liar.”  Gabbard said:

"I think you had the director of the Department of National Intelligence at that time, James Clapper, who sat before the United States Senate and blatantly lied," Gabbard charged.

"He was asked very directly, 'Are you collecting this information,' and he said 'no.' 'Are you collecting this information on American citizens' and he said, 'no.' And yet, he is somebody you see on TV almost every day as an expert in this country without any consequence lying to the American people."