Treating criticism of his corrupt tenure as an attack on the 'judicial process itself' has it backward.

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The day Merrick Garland was set to appear before Congress, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece exploring the attorney general's "by-the-book, play-no-favorites approach." This rendering of Garland conflicts with reality.

Even now, Garland is refusing to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interviews with former special counsel Robert Hur over the president's hoarding of classified documents, despite a congressional subpoena. 

As the Department of Justice stonewalls Congress, it is also prosecuting the Republican Party's presidential candidate for the very crimes the Hur tape supposedly "exonerates" Biden from.

Considering the Hur transcript has already been released – and we know that Biden lied about it – there is even less justification for withholding the audio. And considering the DOJ has apparently cleaned up all the "uhs" and "ohs" and garbled words in the transcript, the tape would likely further cement the president as an "elderly man with a poor memory."

Withholding the audio is obviously politically motivated. Which is unsurprising, since Garland has been one of the most partisan AGs in memory.

While Garland was raiding Trump's home over a classified document dispute, he was letting the statute of limitations on the foreign influence-peddling by Biden's family run out.

While left-wing pro-Hamas protesters were rioting and targeting Jews, Garland was still fearmongering over the coming MAGA extremist revolution, inflating the threat with bogus statistics.

While Garland did nothing to stop the illegal picketing at the homes of Supreme Court justices and attempting to intimidate them and influence cases – not even after an assassin targeted Brett Kavanaugh – he did deploy armed teams to raid the homes of pro-life families and prosecute elderly anti-abortion protesters for praying in front of "clinics."

Even as Democrats are yammering about saving democracy, the DOJ is suing red states like Texas to overturn duly passed laws limiting abortion.

Even as the DOJ was restarting censorship efforts under the guise of stopping foreign interference, Garland was targeting X owner Elon Musk with new investigations. It's quite the happenstance, right?

Not only did Garland form a "task force" to investigate local parents who were protesting authoritarian COVID restrictions and racist curriculums, but he refused to dissolve the effort even after the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter that sparked it.

Of course, it was the Biden administration that prompted the organization to use the term "domestic terrorism" to give the DOJ justification to get involved in the first place. Even The New York Times acknowledged that "Garland did not detail any specific threats of violence or offer reasons for the increase in harassment and threats." The only reason to get involved was to chill speech and intimidate parents.

Even the case against Hunter Biden, used most often to brandish Garland's alleged Solomonic credentials, is a farce.

Let's not forget if the DOJ had its way, there would be no prosecution. To begin with, Garland ignored the law and appointed a counsel from within the government. David Weiss, whose office was filled with Biden allies, was prepared to give Hunter an astonishing immunity deal, not only on felony gun and tax charges but for a slew of unrelated serious potential offenses, including failure to register as a foreign agent, bribery and corruption.

It was only because of the whistleblower testimony of Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that Weiss was forced to ask Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two piddling misdemeanor counts. And the immunity deal was only quashed because Judge Maryellen Noreika, who pointed out there was not a single precedent in which immunity was offered for "crimes in a different case," rejected it.

In his remarks to Congress on June 4, Garland promised that he "will not back down from defending our democracy," despite the "repeated attacks" and "conspiracy theor[ies]" regarding the DOJ. Conspiracy theories exist, no doubt, but most criticisms of Garland's work are legitimate. Treating criticism of his corrupt tenure as an attack on the "judicial process itself" has it backward. Demanding no one question the actions of state institutions is authoritarian. If the system were working properly, Garland would be impeached.

But in their efforts to save "democracy" – a concept that's been stripped of any meaning – Democrats have justified deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn't merely a tool for criminal justice but a way to exact political justice. Garland is one of the leaders in this fight. 

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books -- the most recent, "Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent." 

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