In 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland set the course for an investigation that resulted in the August 2023 indictment of former President Donald Trump on four counts of election interference, The New York Times reports. Prosecutors followed standard legal procedures, starting small and working their way up, despite Trump's efforts to retain power. However, some critics say that Garland's cautious approach may have been a mistake, as he failed to anticipate Trump's political comeback, which has complicated the prosecution and given the former president more leverage in court. “I think that delay has contributed to a situation where none of these trials may go forward,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, said in a recent interview on CNN, citing the Justice Department’s approach as a factor. “The department bears some of that responsibility.”
Yet in 2021 it was “simply inconceivable,” said one former Justice Department official, that Trump, rebuked by many in his own party and exiled at his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, would regain the power to impose his timetable on the investigation. The Supreme Court’s decision to review Trump’s claims of presidential immunity in the case has now threatened to push the trial deep into the campaign season or beyond, raising the possibility that voters will make their choice between Trump and President Biden in November without Trump’s guilt or innocence being established. The New York Times outlines the host of factors, some in Garland’s control, others not, that slowed things down, including a Justice Department racked by personnel issues that buckled under the weight of identifying and prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters — an investigation that became the largest ever undertaken by the department.