Mr. Garland recently served as a federal appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. He submitted a resignation letter to the court on Wednesday in anticipation of his swearing in as attorney general.
But he is best known for refusing Republicans to consider his nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016, a political power play that ultimately enabled Trump to fill the seat.
Mr. Garland is also a longtime veteran of the Department of Justice. He worked as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington during the George HW Bush administration and as a departmental official during the Clinton administration.
During that time, Mr. Garland led the investigation into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people when the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. During his confirmation hearing, weeks after the riot at the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, Mr Garland promised to use the full power of the department to combat domestic extremism.
Mr. Garland spent most of Thursday in private briefings with top officials, including Christopher A. Wray, the FBI director; John P. Carlin, the Acting Deputy Attorney General; John C. Demers, head of the national security department; and Michael R. Sherwin, the federal prosecutor overseeing the department’s extensive investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
During an afternoon visit to the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, Mr. Garland personally addressed several officials for their work on the investigation, including Channing D. Phillips, the acting U.S. attorney; his deputy, Ken Kohl; and the prosecutors who led the effort, including JP Cooney, Michelle Zamarin, Gregg Maisel and John Crabb.
In a virtual meeting with all the employees of the office, Mr. Garland made efforts to mitigate the threat in the weeks following the attack on the Capitol and, according to the participant, reiterated the importance of the investigation.