What I find really sad about the Garland/Smith investigation of Trump

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22. many people have said Garland is afraid of the white supremacists supporter backlash

...that's why.

That prosecution makes Garland especially equipped to handle this case where a good chunk of the nation is in revolt against the government.

“We had tremendous confidence in him, and I think his handling of that very challenging situation was flawless,” said Jamie Gorelick, Garland’s boss at the time of the Oklahoma City attack and one of the country’s longest-serving deputy attorneys general. “If you look at his background, he was very well suited for working both with the FBI and the other investigative agencies, and well-regarded by all of them, and he had a wonderful way of bringing people together on the ground.”

“The Oklahoma City bombing and its legacy are critical to understanding the domestic extremist movements of today,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a report last year.

People who know Garland from his work in Oklahoma believe that the country could have no better ally in the fight against homegrown extremism, a broad job whose challenges include not only prosecuting the recent insurrectionists but also preventing the next attack, disrupting extremist groups on social media, rooting out white supremacists from police forces and the military, and restoring public trust in the rule of law.

“He played a pivotal role here, but I think, fast-forward to 2021, and he can play a remarkable role in bringing our country back together,” said Kari Watkins, executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. “Judge Garland is a unifier. He brought families to the table, he brought survivors, first responders to the table that were still dealing with loss, and surgeries, and putting their lives back together.”

“I would say that his experience in Oklahoma City – and the work we needed to do in response to the church bombings that took place when we were at main justice in the mid-1990s, as well as the abortion clinic bombings – grounded him in the importance of civil rights,” Gorelick said, “and in the importance of coordinated and strong approaches to dealing with the enforcement of our laws relating to civil rights and protecting the country against terrorism of any sort.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/01/merrick-garland-oklahoma-city-timothy-mcveigh-attorney-general