Poised to take over a beleaguered Justice Department, Merrick Garland may face his biggest test

For Merrick Garland, a well-regarded lawyer and federal judge — and onetime Supreme Court nominee — there was a critical condition under which he’d accept the nomination of attorney general under President Biden.

“Merrick’s acceptance comment was, ‘President-elect Biden has guaranteed me independence,’” Earl Steinberg, a childhood friend of Garland, recalled from Biden and Garland’s Jan. 7 nomination announcement. “Then he choked up a little bit and said, ‘or I would not have accepted the nomination.’ That is classic Merrick.”

It seemed to strike Steinberg as an encapsulation of the kind of law practitioner that Garland has strived to be throughout his decades-long career.

“That’s not to say that there aren’t going to be situations in which he seeks input from the administration about nonlegal dimensions,” Steinberg, a physician who has known Garland since kindergarten, told Yahoo News. “But he’ll do the right thing legally.”