“A number of Republican senators who blithely supported former Attorney General Bill Barr using his post to act as former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer are suddenly expressing serious concern that Merrick Garland promise to be apolitical in the same role. ‘My sole criterion for voting for your confirmation is your pledge to make sure that politics does not affect your job as attorney general,’ Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Monday at Garland’s Senate Judiciary hearing. Cornyn, who voted to confirm Barr, later was a point Republican scrambling to smooth over strained relations between Trump and Barr last winter, loathe to let a reliable ally be fired going into the election.”
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took the argument a step further, blaming the ‘Obama-Biden Justice Department’ for being ‘politicized and weaponized’ in an unprecedented way. ‘It is very much my hope, if you are confirmed as attorney general, that you will bring that reputation for integrity to the Department of Justice and demonstrate a willingness to stand up to what will be inevitable political pressure to once again politicize the Department of Justice and use it as a tool to attack the political opponents of the current administration,’ he said. He did not mention the Trump-era DOJ in his line of questioning” – Talking Points Memo.