Garland Blends Outreach With Restraint to Build Justice Morale

Attorney General Merrick Garland has spent much of his first year in office delicately reinstating pre-Trump era traditions to rebuild the Justice Department’s independence and career lawyers’ morale.

Garland has largely stayed out of the public spotlight, rarely discussing the department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection and other fallout from Donald Trump’s presidency.

Restraint and what one former senior DOJ official described as a detached management style come naturally to Garland, who spent the previous 24 years cloistered half a mile up Pennsylvania Avenue as a federal appeals court judge.

Garland’s even-keeled focus on upholding norms—without overtly discussing the ...