U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was denied a seat on the Supreme Court by Republicans in the Senate a few years ago, but now he faces a decision as important as any the Supreme Court could make: his decision to prosecute a former U.S. president.
The 69-year-old former judge personally authenticated a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, and it’s up to him whether to charge him.
This would set a precedent for the former US president.
Richard Nixon was pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford before a decision was made on whether to indict him in the Watergate scandal.
“Blaming a former president for any reason is an unusual idea,” said Stephen Sean, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “What Trump did is also unusual.”
The raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence appears to be linked to the presence of classified documents, but the former president is under further investigation into his attempts to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election and his role in the attack. by his supporters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
