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With Merrick Garland pick, Biden signals stark contrast with Trump on Justice Department
By Joan Biskupic, CNN legal analyst & Supreme Court biographer
Updated 7:04 AM ET, Fri January 8, 2021
(CNN) - President Donald Trump declared nearly a year ago, "I am actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer," as he tried to assert control over Department of Justice decisions.
The claim in February 2020, as Trump basked in his Senate acquittal on US House impeachment charges and prepared to fire people who had testified against him, offered just one episode of his enduring contempt for the norms of justice.
Such transgressions, to be sure, were eclipsed this week by the riotous violence he instigated at the Capitol. Yet Thursday's televised tableau of President-elect Joe Biden presenting Judge Merrick Garland to be the next attorney general provided a remarkable contrast to the Trump way and demonstrated that a restorative agenda has begun.
"You won't work for me," Biden said. "You are not the president's or the vice president's lawyer. Your loyalty is not to me. It's to the law, the Constitution."
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/merrick-garland-biden-doj/index.html