Merrick Garland: “Over 40 years ago, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Justice Department concluded that the best way to ensure…”

“Over 40 years ago, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Justice Department concluded that the best way to ensure the department's independence, integrity, and fair application of our laws, and therefore the best way to ensure the health of our democracy, is to have a set of norms to govern our work. The central norm is that in our criminal investigations, there cannot be different rules depending on one’s political party or affiliation. There cannot be different rules for friends and foes, and there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless.”