This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio. At his confirmation hearing, Judge Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden's nominee for Attorney General, said domestic terrorism is a greater threat than it has been for decades, and vowed to
prioritize combating extremist violence. We must do everything in the power of the Justice Department to prevent this kind of interference with the policies of American democratic institutions, and I plan if you no confirm me for Attorney General, to
do everything in my power to ensure that we are protected. Garland, who is now a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, appears headed for a bipartisan vote of approval in the Senate, almost five years after Senate Republicans blocked consideration of his nomination to the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama joining me is Matthew Schneider, former U S attorney in Michigan and a partner at Huntingman. So just give me your general impression of Merrick Garland's
testimony today. So it seems like the questions are following into three categories. There's current cases, the Justice Department's independence and policy, Well, Mr Garland can't talk about current cases, and he's assured the senators that the department will be independent.
So really the focus of the hearing is about policy and in general and but more specifically the focus of the hearing is about what policies will the new Attorney General make that will be different from the previous administration. And this is in a variety of areas climate change, voting rights, racism, marijuana, all very very broad topics. And he said that his first priority, his first briefing, will be to deal with the attack on the Capitol and that the tack was not a one off with regard
to domestic terrorism. How much can an Attorney general's commitment make a difference in that regard, Well, in this case a lot, because there are multiple cases arising out of that incident at the Capitol. Those are all being prosecuted by the Justice Department. Because the US Justice Department in Washington, d C. Handles both state and federal cases. So whether those cases are charged in any capacity, that's going to
be a Justice Department initiatives. And if you think about who Merrick Garland is, this is really quite revealing that he began his testimony by talking about the importance of combating domestic terrorism and making that one of his highest priorities. Well, look at him himself. He's already done that. He prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing case. So this is a good example of why there's really no room for on the job training as a new attorney general, and Merritt Garland
is proving that. In his confirmation hearing, over and over again, he said that he will make independent decisions about investigations and prosecutions and that he wouldn't have taken the job if politics were a part of it. But still he was asked that question in different forms over and over. Was he not convincing the first five or six times
he said it? I think he was convincing. But each senator wants to ask his or her own questions, and that is a very important question and line of questioning for the senators, and I think they want absolute assurance that that is the case, and he's coming across very convincingly. Now. There was a great deal of questioning from Republicans about whether he would continue specific investigations and politically sensitive cases.
The Dorm investigation, the Hunter Biden investigation among them. Did his answer satisfy you, Yes, Because as u S Attorney, I didn't discuss ongoing cases with the media either, and neither ken a nominee for Attorney General. It is the same, you do not discuss those ongoing cases. And look, he isn't in the Justice Department yet, he doesn't even know. He also stated many times, I haven't been briefed on this case. He's not up to speed on them. He really knows about as much in those cases as a
normal ordinary American might glean from reading the newspaper. There was a great deal of question from Democrats about the Justice Department that Garland will inherit, one that was criticized for being politicized under Trump and whose staff, according to reporting, has gone through some tumultuous times. What did you get from him about how he'll handle the administration of the Justice Department. I took from that that he will be an even hand, and he will be fair, and he
will manage that the department very very well. What didn't really come out in this hearing is when they're talking about the morale of the Justice Department. What didn't come out is what is the Justice Department. The Justice Department is in the U. S. Attorney's offices. The Justice Department is in ninety three districts across the country in every single state. Those are where the Justice Department employees are,
and the morale in those offices is quite high. And that just didn't come across you mentioned that They were asking him about policy. How much of the policy is the attorney generals to make? How much is he following what the administration tells him? And does it depend on the Attorney general? It does depend on the attorney channel.
That policy comes from the Attorney general, Whether or not to prosecute marijuana cases, whether or not to have the China initiatives continue that was started under Attorney General just Sessions, Whether or not to create an office in the Justice Department focus on climate change. Those are decisions that are made in the order charts at the Justice Department, So certainly he can make a lot of those decisions himself. In his remarks, he talked about prioritizing policing and civil
rights to combat racial discrimination. Any indication how he intends to carry that out. Another item that came up in this confirmation here was the use of consent decrees. Consent decrees to settle cases against police departments in the municipalities. Those were used in the Obama administration. Those consent decrees were ended in the Trump administration. So the question now is will Merrick Garland bring back the use of consent
decrees against police departments for police actions or wrongs. And he indicated that he would. That is a tool that is in his toolbox, and I think that's exactly what we're going to see. We're going to see the Justice Department using consent decrees much like it did in the Obama administration, and that aspect will come back. And what
about prioritizing civil rights? He plans to expand the Justice Department Civil Rights Division and to use consent decrees in the more forceful manner that has been done in the immediate path. And look, everything in the Justice Department, when you move one lever, something else reacts. So if you're going to increase the enforcement in civil rights, you're going to have to look at other parts of the department to find out where am I going to cut back?
Because the Justice Department only has so many employees. And I know that Merrick Garland is committed to enforcing the work of the Civil Rights Division. The question then becomes, where are those bodies going to come from if you have to expand the division. There was no reference to whether or not he's going to consider criminal charges against former President Trump. Are you surprised that no one has
asked in that question? I am. I'm surprised that the questions hasn't been and I'm not going to be surprised at all of the answer because he's not going to answer that question. It's a question that contemplates of future possible criminal prosecution, and as he's indicated repeatedly, he hasn't been briefed. He hasn't even met with John Durham. He needs to get into the department, find out what's going on, and then make those decisions after that, sort of on
a personal level with him. Do you think a lot of attorneys would give up a federal judge ship a lifetime appointment to become the attorney general, which is such an incredibly hard job. Yes, absolutely, Look, Louis Freed gave up his job as a federal judge to become the head of the FBI, and I believe he did that because he felt that that was his drive and his purpose in life to advance the ball. And I think Merrick Darlan feels the same way. He is looking at
a new step in his life. He believes that this is the right thing for him to do, and I think he'll do a fine job at it as a matter of fact. And so for him, it's not always about your job security, it's about doing what you think is right. Well. But okay, so now the differences between the Trump administration and the Biden administration are enormous. We envision what does that mean for the priorities of the Justice Department. You're going to see a lot change in
the priorities. And we're talking about the policy here, the use of consent decrees in the Civil Rights Division, the ability to charge people and give discretion to the line assist US attorneys. Attorney General as Croft hit his approach, which was less discretion. Eric Holder gave more discretion to the assistant at US Attorneys. Jeff Sessions was kind of in the middle. But I think you're going to see that Mary Garland wants to give more discretion to line
assistant U S Attorneys. You'll see difference used on how to prosecute corporations. I mean, if you think about it that way, when you were in the Justice Department under President Trump, corporations didn't always have to provide cooperation and an investigation. But in the previous administration under Obama, corporations were expected to cooperate. And I think you're going to see a return to that. And I think you'll also see a return to more significant signs for corporations and
polluters who run a foul federal law. That's going to be very significant. I know personally from my discussions with Deputy Attorney General Rosen that these things about finding a corporation or how to treat a corporation, I know that he thought very contemplatively about that. He thought very long and hard about those types of decisions because of the impact that that could have on shareholders and the corporation itself. We have to see what the new approach will be
under Merrick Garland. If you were advising a corporation, or if you if you were running a corporation, what would
you do. What's your best advice? I would say, look at your corporate compliance programs right now, because the President of the United States, Mr Biden has said that he will quote hold corporate executives personally accountable, including jail time unquote, And if I were a corporate executive, I would want to make sure that nobody in my company, nobody was committing any federal crimes, engaging in wrongdoing, who was polluting,
was violating any type of regulation. Because the scrutiny is about to come, Does Garland have a say in who the U S Attorneys are for each district? I mean, how does that work? Not? Really? I mean the the president will get to select the U. S. Attorneys, and that really goes through. Often times there will be local committees and the local U. S. Senators will have a
lot of impact on that. And then once the U. S. Senators decide that they feel comfortable with who the U. S. Attorney nominee will be, that candidate will go to the Justice Department and will have an interview with either the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General prior to the appointment. But it's usually not that the Attorney General reaches out into the state and finds out who they want the U. S.
Attorney to be. Usually the reverse, the state's reach out to Washington d c and I know you had a special take on the issue of domestic terrorism. Let's look at where we are kind of in a historical context. Any time that there is a significant act in American history, often federal law changes. If you look at the Rise of the Mafia, the Congress decided that they would pass RICO. If you look at the Oklahoma City bombing, Congress decided
to pass enhancements to the anti terrorism statutes. After September eleven, Congress passed the Patriot Act. So now the question is, after the assault on the Capitol on January six, what will the Congress respond to Will they pass additional legislation that really gives us a more firm and usable domestic terrorism law. That is a question that is on the table really for Congress. I know it came up in the context of the hearing, but that's not really a
question for the incoming Attorney General. That's a policy choice that the Congress can make, and that is certainly to be covered in the next coming weeks and months. Thanks Matthew. That's Matthew Schneiderman, former U S attorney in Michigan and
a partner at Huntingman Voting Machine company. Dominion is suing my Pillows chief executive officer, Mike Lindell, you know, one point three billion dollar defamation lawsuit for echoing Donald Trump's hall has claimed that the voting machine company rigged the election.
Joining me is Eric Larson, Bloomberg Legal reporter. So tell us about the lawsuit, Eric, So, Dominion sued Mike Lindel four defamations cause for months he's been repeating this false claim that Dominion was part of a vast conspiracy to uh flip millions of votes away from Trump to ensure Joe Biden's victory as part of this vast plot involving foreign agents, you know, communist money and even the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Shaviaz So uh he is one of
several people who who's been one of the loudest uh amplifiers of these claims. And so the lawsuit was seen as somewhat inevitable, and it was filed here just yesterday. And Dominion claims that Lindale increased his sales by as much as forty and would issue promotional codes for his product like fight for Trump and Q and UM. That's right.
The evidence played out in the This complaint, which is more than a hundred pages, includes a lot of details, uh, you know, evidence from Mr Lindell's public appearances, whether on sort of like a very conservative or right wing media outlets, two appearances in person at events where he would be you know, ranting against this unfounded election fraud conspiracy, but then at the same time also offering up promotional codes
to get discounts on pillows and things like that. And of course Trump, you know, was a supporter of of his company as well. He suggested people go ahead and buy his pillows, so he that he got an early boost from Trump, you know, several years ago, and I was sort of was returning to favor here by going on the road to suggest that Trump the election had been stolen from him. Dominion had warned Lindale, but Lindale
didn't back down, No, not at all. The complaints outlines that several warning letters were sent to Mr Lendell suggesting that he stopped saying the things that he is saying. Each time he would go ahead and get back on the air and repeat the claims um Indeed, after the suit was filed yesterday, I had a phone call, a phone conversation with Mr Lendell, and he doubled down again. He a plot out repeated his claim that dominion voting
machines are specifically designed for fraud to steal elections. Um. You know, said that again that it was part of a plot involving China and other foreign agents. Uh so, and insisting that he has mountains of evidence that he's going to be able to present in this case, and even saying that he welcomed the lawsuit being filed because now he'll have an opportunity to present all this evidence in court and he's extremely confident that he's gonna win.
He told you these machines were built to steal elections. I'm not a stupid guy. If I didn't have a hundred evidence, I wouldn't be doing this. That's correct, And you get a sense of of his approach to this litigation here. Um. He said as well that he has, you know, put all of this evidence up on a website. He even says he made um a documentary of his
own that he's put online. Um. And and the characterization of the evidence that he's talking about, you know, I haven't looked through at all, but it sounds similar to some of the evidence that was put forward and or described in all these about sixty lawsuits after the election by Trumpler's campaign or his allies that all failed, UM, including several by Sydney Powell UM that have the same
allegations about this alleged you know conspiracy, UM. But those there were a lot of affidavits that they weren't signed, a lot of it was redacted, and a lot of it has been like very explicitly debunked, UM, including especially these affidavits around that Venezuelan link. But that doesn't seem to dissuade Mr Lindell UM. He again, he says he's confident that he's going to win this case. Interesting that dominion included in its complaint false claims he'd made about
his products. That's right. You've got a sense in the complaints that Dominion wanted to Um sort of spell out of history of of you know, false claims being made
by Lindell and and My Pillow. And he did point out that in this complaints that several you know counties in California had accused My Pillow and accused Lindell of making false claims about his My Pillow products, saying that it's you know, cured all kinds of elements UM like cyber myalgia and restless leg syndrome and insomnia, and there's you know, they said that's not true. You just can't
just can't make those claims about your pillows UM. And he did reach an agreement with the prosecutors to um pay of just about a million dollars fines and a hundred thousand dollars UH in donations. On top of that. So UM he also UH made some claims about a product that supposedly with the pure or treatment for COVID nineteen UM that he insisted had past phase one and phase two trials and that the FDA would soon be
approving it UM. The complaint notes that none of those trials took place, and of course the FDA did not end up approving this. In fact, the FDA put out a statement specifically a warning people away from this product. So you can see that there's a bit of a history of mister Lindell making claims it turned out to not be true. UH, So they're trying to tie that to the his claims about dominion. Thanks Erk. That's Eric Lawson, Bloomberg Legal reporter and that's it for this edition of
The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on a Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com slash podcast slash Law. I'm June Grasso. Thanks so much for listening, and please turn into The Bloomberg Law Show every week that attend d M Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio