Jan. 16 (UPI) — Attorney General Merrick Garland said “norms” determine the principles upon which the Justice Department operates while bidding farewell to staffers after leading the department over the past four years.
He said the Justice Department established norms that differentiate what the department can do and what it should do following the 1972 Watergate scandal.
Those norms were formalized over the next 50 years and “are our commitment to constrain our own discretion,” Garland said during his farewell address Thursday at the Justice Department.
He said norms determine when agents begin investigations, when prosecutors file charges and when facts and the law support the pursuit of cases.
“Our norms are a promise to treat like cases alike,” Garland said, “that we will not have one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, one rule for friends and another for foes.”
He said norms ensure career agents, attorneys and staff maintain their respect and integrity while serving as the “institutional backbone and the historical memory” of the Justice Department.
“Those norms include our commitment to guaranteeing the independence of the Justice Department from both the White House and Congress concerning law enforcement investigations and prosecutions,” Garland said.
“We make that commitment not because independence is necessarily constitutionally required but because it is the only way to ensure that our law enforcement decisions are free from partisan influence,” he said.
“Only an independent Justice Department can protect the safety and civil rights of everyone in our country” and “ensure that the facts and law alone will determine whether a person is investigated or prosecuted,” he added.
The nation’s attorney general is obligated to uphold the norms to ensure the Justice department and staff “do the right thing” and “do it the right way,” Garland said.
“The attorney general is only a temporary steward of this department,” he said. “Its heart and soul is its career workforce.”
While under his watch, Garland said, the Justice Department and its staff worked with local law enforcement and communities to “dramatically turn the tide against the violent crime that spiked during the pandemic.”
Department staff “disrupted threats from foreign and domestic terrorists and from authoritarian regimes that threatened our country’s stability” and “answered the call when families who lost loved ones to fentanyl poisoning were seeking justice,” Garland said.
The department and its staff challenged anti-competitive agreements, unlawful monopolies, fraud, public corruption and environmental degradation, he added.
He said the department also secured “historic” financial penalties against corporations that broke the law, held corporate executive accountable and “worked tirelessly to fulfill the Justice Department’s founding purpose to protect civil rights.”
Garland cited the prosecution of more than 1,500 supporters of President Donald Trump for their respective roles leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
“You brought to justice those who kicked, punched, beat and tased law enforcement officers who were protecting the Capitol that day,” Garland said, “and you pursued accountability for that attack on our democracy wherever it led.”
He said Justice Department personnel don’t do their jobs to seek recognition but because they are public servants.
He acknowledged many criticize the Justice Department for allegedly allowing politics to influence its actions and called such criticism “unfounded.”
“That criticism often comes from people with political views opposite from one another,” Garland said, “each making the exact opposite points about the same set of facts.”
“You have worked to pursue justice — not politics,” Garland said. “That is the truth, and nothing can change it.”
He concluded his farewell address by saying it was an honor to serve with the Justice Department’s personnel.
“I will miss you,” Garland said. “I will miss all of you.”
