WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland denounced “dangerous” and “outrageous” attacks on Justice Department prosecutors and personnel Thursday and sought to reassure them that he has their backs.
In a speech to his employees, Garland said there has been “an escalation of attacks on the Justice Department’s career lawyers, agents, and other personnel” over the last three-and-a-half years.
“These attacks have come in the form of conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out, and threats of actual violence,” Garland said. “It is dangerous and outrageous that you have to endure them.”
“It is dangerous to target and intimidate individual employees of this department simply for doing their jobs.” Garland added. “And it is outrageous that you have to face these unfounded attacks because you are doing what is right and upholding the rule of law.”
The attorney general said he and other department officials will “fiercely protect” the DOJ’s independence from “political interference in our criminal investigations,” will not allow the department to be used “as a political weapon” and will not allow law enforcement to be “treated as an apparatus of politics.”
Garland listed steps that the department has already taken to protect the DOJ’s criminal and civil decisions, such as reinstating policies regulating communication between DOJ employees and Congress and the White House. Other actions have included improving and clarifying guidelines for sensitive FBI investigations and publishing new policies to guide “prosecutorial discretion with respect to charging, pleas and sentencing.”
He said of the attacks on prosecutors: “You deserve better. You deserve gratitude for the noble and difficult work you do. You deserve recognition for the integrity and skill with which you do that work.”
“You also have my promise, that nothing will ever stop me from defending this Department, and the extraordinary people who work here,” Garland said.
Since leaving office in 2021, former President Donald Trump has continually lashed out at the Department of Justice over its investigations into him as well as the indictments. Trump and his lawyers have claimed the DOJ has been weaponized to target him largely in an effort to prevent him from being elected to another term as president.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on Garland’s remarks.
The former president has called DOJ employees derogatory names, describing, for example, special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump in separate cases, as “deranged.” He has also threatened prosecutors, saying in a Truth Social post last year when alluding to the federal 2020 election interference charges against him, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” As a result, judges have instituted gag orders to block Trump from speaking about certain officials in various cases.
Smith has even been targeted in a swatting incident, as have judges involved in Trump’s cases.
During the six-week New York hush money trial earlier this year, Trump said in remarks outside the courtroom on a near daily basis that Biden’s Justice Department was being weaponized against him. The case, however, wasn’t federal; it was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump was eventually convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
In recent weeks, Trump has doubled down on threats he’s previously made regarding his intention to use the DOJ to prosecute people he believes have gone after him while he’s been out of office.
After a recent rally, Trump wrote on social media: ““WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.”
