The Revenge of the Merrick Garlands
Sometimes, the Rule of Law rules
I recently had to turn down an invitation to go to one of my favorite events in the world and sit at a table with some of my favorite people in the world, but I did it for one of the best reasons in the world. (My life is lately superlative.) My friends A & B, you see, have fallen in love and asked me to officiate their wedding. I accepted but claim no impartiality. B is my best friend, and howsoever I might adore and respect A, in all matters of dispute in the ceremony I am likely to rule in his favor. It’s possible that I do not fully understand my role as wedding officiant, but no matter. Pre-nuptial negotiations are off to a bully start. A has offered to include in her vows forbearance for his dedication to fantasy baseball. This is wise, and it requires the tiniest bit of backstory that involves my championship-caliber squad, the Merrick Garlands.
I joined B’s fantasy baseball league in 2017 with a squad named Uncle Louie’s Terror Babies, a name that honored the east Texas congressman’s warning that pregnant Muslim terrorists were sneaking across our border with Mexico and giving birth… Honestly, writing it out like this cheapens the whole enterprise. If you want to find out why Louie Gohmert, who was an actual congressman who got to vote and use the sharp scissors and everything, watch this explainer from the inimitable Elise Hu.
Don’t worry, we’ll wait.
***
Crazy, right?
OK, back to 2017 and Uncle Louie’s Terror Babies, who won their first year in the league. B found this all the more remarkable because despite having been in the league since the Iraq War still seemed winnable to the Bush White House, he had never won it. Let’s put this into perspective: Cars was a brand new movie when they started the league. Since then, Cars has become a franchise with two Pixar sequels and two Disneytoon spin-offs, and — I cannot emphasize this enough — B has yet to enjoy a single championship in fantasy baseball despite a dedication so great that he checks on his team’s progress (or, more commonly, lack thereof) during dates with A.
Despite having been in the league since the Iraq War seemed winnable, he had never won the championship.
To further measure his ineptitude, his children helped him pick his team name — the Vipers. Those children have since graduated college and started their careers, their successful marches through time a spiteful mockery of the Vipers’ playoff drought. Since the league was founded, B has written or co-written two New York Times bestsellers and had another adapted into a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp. And yet, despite this enviable track record of success as a father and as an author, he has yet to bring home a fantasy baseball championship despite constant and hopeful attention to same.
Meanwhile, Uncle Louie’s Terror Babies did not continue their successful ways. The following year, their draft was sabotaged by factors outside of their control, namely apathy and alcohol. They began the season with a series of losses so impressive that action was demanded. That action was a rebranding. It was 2018, and I figured if he couldn’t be a Supreme Court Justice, then by god Merrick Garland was going to enjoy a legacy as the namesake of my fantasy baseball team, the Merrick Garlands. I assumed his story, if not history, was written in stone, no need for extra tablets in case something advanced this plot.
Uncle Louie’s Terror Babies’ draft was sabotaged by factors outside of their control, namely apathy and alcohol.
Years (not many) passed, and the Vipers amassed as many championships as popular votes Republican presidential candidates had won since the ‘80s (zero). Enter Joe Biden, who installed Garland as his attorney general on January 7. Biden talked about the attack the day before, recapped the damage that Trump had intentionally done to institutions of democracy, and then gave Garland his marching orders as attorney general:
“I want to be clear to those who lead this department, who you will serve. You won’t work for me. You are not the president or the vice president’s lawyer. Your loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, the Constitution, the people of this nation, to guarantee justice.”
At which point, every Democratic activist in the country sighed and said something along the lines of, “Gosh,” or “gee.” Some even let slip a synonym or two of bodily functions, a “poop,” if you will. Because what we — yeah, I’ll admit this — really wanted was revenge. Trump had been breaking the law in broad daylight for four years, and we wanted someone to do something about it. We wanted Lady Justice to take off her blindfold so she’d have better aim.
The Vipers, sadly, again failed to reach the postseason.
But Garland plodded along, refusing to accuse, refusing to indict, refusing to do much of anything to sate our appetites for retribution. It got so bad that Congress started to look good in unpacking the events surrounding the insurrection, and still Garland plodded quietly in private while his namesake fantasy team returned to the playoffs. The Vipers, sadly, again failed to reach the postseason.
***
A couple Fridays ago, a federal magistrate judge issued a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. And while too much can be speculated without seeing Merrick Garland’s affidavit, the judge, by issuing the search warrant, was saying that he thought the ex-President of the United States, a failed reality TV show host, a man who couldn’t turn a profit when he owned casinos and sold booze, had broken multiple federal laws.
The next day Merrick Garland took a walk with his childhood friend, college roommate, and best man at his wedding, Earl Steinberg. Steinberg says they didn’t talk about what was to happen on Monday, and Garland isn’t talking about much at all. Maybe Garland wanted to tell his friend, but more likely he probably enjoyed the peace of not talking about it with someone who respected his boundaries. Do you think Garland was buzzing with excitement, though? Or was he as boringly methodical as he seems. Trump broke this law, he would have concluded. Therefore, we must investigate. Maybe he didn’t think about it at all, just plodding along with his best friend.
Republicans reacted to the raid with reflective calm as per usual. Sen. Rick Scott (R-eactionary) and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-eally?) compared Garland, whose grandparents fled antisemitic pograms in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century, to Nazis, and Sen. Ted Cruz, who really should know better, called enforcing the law a “corrupt … abuse of power.”
A friend and I were musing about the initial Republican reaction last week.
“My god, if they can go after one of most powerful men in the world for breaking the law, then you could be next!”
“If not even the obscenely wealthy and privileged are protected from the law, then people are going to get the idea that we are… the word escapes me…”
“Less obscenely wealthy…? No, that’s not quite it.”
“Indeed, further from the point you seek.”
“How so?”
“It’s almost by treating this rich and powerful person as if he is subject to the same… no, that can’t be right.”
“Surely Merrick Garland doesn’t mean to intimate that we are equal…?”
“Not equal in all things, after all, we’re talking about a man who owns gold toilets and has so many beautiful and successful children that he can completely ignore Tiffany.”
“Also there is the matter of money, of which I have perhaps less than he, notwithstanding the fiction of his status as a billionaire.”
“Are you saying I am picking up the check?”
“Only if by doing so you are signaling agreement that we are equal under the law?”
“I see your drink is empty, that being the only explanation for you saying such nonsense. May I remind you that logic and reason have no place here, for this is a bar. Now, another round while we check our math.”
***
Merrick Garland emerged from behind the curtain to ask Trump to agree to release the search warrants. When it came out that the classified materials Trump had refused to hand over dealt with nuclear secrets, the Republican response became more measured, often asking for the affidavit to be released as well so we can really know what is up and what is down. Things do not look good for the Don.
This might be the Viper’s year.
Meanwhile, the Merrick Garlands and the Vipers are in a six-way logjam for only a few playoff spots. This might be B’s year, though what with his impending nuptials to one of the most determinedly kind people I know, it can be said that it already is. This might also be the year the Merrick Garlands, plural, return to the championship round, but one thing we can say for sure. This has all of a sudden become Merrick Garland’s year.
He was supposed to be a Supreme Court Justice, but he could end up being something much better: The quiet lawyer who showed the entire world that in the United States, no one is above the law. That, and a championship fantasy baseball team, are what legacies are made of.
Jason Stanford is the co-author of NYT-best selling Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth. His bylines have appeared in the Washington Post, Time, and Texas Monthly, among others. He works at the Austin Independent School District as Chief of Communications and Community Engagement, though he would want to point out that these are his personal opinions and his alone, but you already knew that. Follow him on Twitter @JasStanford.
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