Garland Pledges Independent DOJ as Biden’s Attorney General (1)

President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to be attorney general pledged to restore independence to the Justice Department’s work and said riots at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday showed the importance of the rule of law.

Merrick Garland, the federal judge who never got a hearing on his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court during the Obama administration, said his mission as attorney general will be to reaffirm those policies as the principles that guide the department’s work.

“The rule of law is not just some lawyer’s turn of phrase,” Garland said on Thursday after being introduced by Biden. “It ...