General Discussion

We know how they would play that: "Biden is firing a good, competent, diligent, professional, non-partisan, all-around-good-guy Merrick Garland because he wouldn't prosecute Trump."

My beef with Garland as appointee (both by Obama and by Biden) is that his main claim to fame was that Republicans wouldn't have any objections to him. Maybe he would have been OK on the SCOTUS, but Obama might as well have nominated Ralph Nader, for all the good that did.

This looked like a sympathy hire when Biden did it. But surely Biden had to understand there were major prosecutions that had to be pursued vigorously. Maybe Biden really believed that Garland would do the job, and his coziness with the Republicans would give Biden some political cover. But after what McConnell did, I don't see how Biden could believe that.