Attorney General Merrick Garland has received criticism from left-leaning figures after the federal case over President-elect Donald Trump's alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results was dropped.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan approved special counsel Jack Smith's request to dismiss the case surrounding the events leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol in the wake of Trump's 2024 election victory.
The Department of Justice has a policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents. Trump, who denied four federal charges, was frequently accused of using delay tactics to push the case beyond November's election. This includes filing legal proceedings arguing that he cannot be prosecuted for actions committed while in office, a position the Supreme Court largely agreed with in a historic July decision.
Garland, who leads the DOJ, has now faced backlash for not moving forward with the investigation quickly enough, including waiting until November 2022 to appoint Smith as special counsel. Others have said this delay ultimately led to Trump winning the 2024 election and being allowed to reenter the White House next year.
Tristan Snell, a former assistant attorney general for New York who led the investigation and prosecution into Trump University and spoke at this year's Democratic National Convention, posted on X, formerly Twitter: "Merrick Garland will either go down as the most ineffective attorney general in American history—or there will no longer be America or history as we know it." In 2016, the Republican settled multiple lawsuits over claims his Trump University had defrauded students. The president-elect had denied any wrongdoing.
Newsweek has contacted the DOJ for comment via email.
A number of other progressive figures have criticized Garland after the case was dropped.
Political commentator, podcast host and author of Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy, Brian Tyler Cohen, posted: "Thank God Merrick Garland waited nearly two years to appoint Jack Smith because, after all, nothing is more important than preventing the optics of politicization."
In reply, Jonathan Greenberg, investigative journalist and founder of the Stop Trump Dictatorship Project as well as of Progressive Source Communications, wrote: "Garland is to blame & [President Joe] Biden for appointing a weak AG after the most dangerous coup attempt in our nation's history. Trump would be in jail right now had Garland not blocked Trump's Jan. 6 prosecution for 20 months to allow SCOTUS' delay till dictator strategy to prevail."
Speaking to NewsNation's Dan Abrams, former attorney and radio host on SiriusXM's progressive channel, Dean Obeidallah dismissed the suggestion that Garland was right not to rush a federal criminal investigation into a former president.
"He attempted a coup, and what was Merrick Garland doing? Nothing. So every day the clock went by, he undermined us. It helped normalize Donald Trump," Obeidallah said.
"If Merrick Garland comes in day one or day two and says, 'I'm appointing a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump and anybody else involved in the planning of this,' that would have sent a message nationwide that we don't tolerate coups, and that's the way it should be."
Newsweek has contacted Trump's transition team for comment via email.
Progressive journalist and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said: "Never forget how much responsibility Merrick Garland has for Donald Trump's second presidency and total evasion of legal accountability."
Bill Palmer, author of the left-wing blog Palmer Report, suggested Garland was not the reason Trump will now avoid facing his federal charges.
"The most useless people on earth are the ones who sit around whining about Merrick Garland," Palmer posted.
"If these folks had stopped whining long enough to go out and get our side some more votes, we'd have won and Trump would be going to prison. We're in this mess because of the lazy whiners."
Judge Chutkan dismissed the January 6 case without prejudice, meaning the DOJ could theoretically bring charges against Trump again when he leaves office.
While requesting the case be dropped, Smith said the DOJ's policy not to prosecute sitting presidents "does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind."
In a Monday post on Truth Social after Smith sought the investigation be dismissed, Trump wrote: "These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought."
Steven Cheung, Trump's communications director, said the decision to drop the federal election obstruction case was a "major victory for the rule of law."
"The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system, and we look forward to uniting our country," Cheung said in a statement.
On Monday, Smith also dropped an appeal to the dismissal of the federal classified documents case against Trump.
The president-elect was facing 40 federal charges over his handling of sensitive materials retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021. He was accused of obstructing efforts by federal authorities to return them. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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