This is the upside of Garland’s “institutionalism” that has driven so many of his progressive supporters so batty. He may believe that the ethics of his job require him to, say, fight the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit, or even defend the previous administration* against any lawsuit emanating from the January 6 insurrection. But he also knows that ensuring the voting rights of minority citizens is the reason we have a Justice Department in the first place, and that the DOJ’s always had obligations in that particular fight, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement to our present day, when the work of the past five decades is under revanchist assault from state legislators who simply don’t give a damn about the country’s founding ideals.
