Attorney general nominee Merrick Garland grew visibly emotional at his Senate confirmation hearing on Monday as he recounted how his grandparents fled antisemitic pogroms in Russia for the promise of a better life in the U.S.
Garland, who’d become the third Jewish attorney general in American history if confirmed by the Senate, offered the tearful anecdote after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) asked what motivated him to pursue a career in law.
“I come from a family where my grandparents fled antisemitism and persecution. The country took us in, and protected us,” Garland said, choking back tears. “I feel an obligation to the country to pay back and this is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back.”
“I want very much to be the kind of attorney general that you’re saying I could become. I’ll do my best to try to be that attorney general,” Garland continued, responding to a plea from Booker for the next AG to deal with the “unconscionable injustices” that Black and Hispanic Americans are subjected to by law enforcement.
In the early 20th century, Garland’s grandparents fled to the U.S. from the Pale of Settlement in what was then the most western part of Russia, where the reigning czarist empire forced Jewish residents to live in oppressive conditions.
Garland also credited his grandparents’ plight when he was unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016 by President Barack Obama.
“My family deserves much of the credit for the path that led me here,” he said at the time.
Senate Republicans infamously blocked Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, allowing President Donald Trump to fill that seat with Justice Neil Gorsuch instead.
However, this time around Garland is expected to be easily confirmed as President Biden’s attorney general, with the Senate under Democratic control.
A key focus of Garland’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is whether he’d be willing to as AG prosecute Trump.
Though he refrained from commenting on hypothetical prosecutions, Garland pledged to the committee that his first order of business as AG would be to oversee further investigations of the Trump-incited Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I think this was the most heinous attack on the democratic processes that I’ve ever seen, and one that I never expected to see in my lifetime,” Garland testified.
