Mueller prosecutor slams Merrick Garland's 'myopic' investigation of Trump's coup plot

On Tuesday, POLITICO analyzed how Andrew Weissman, a key prosecutor who worked under former special counsel Robert Mueller, is publicly criticizing the way Attorney General Merrick Garland is investigating the attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

"After the Mueller investigation wrapped up, Weissmann reentered private practice and has kept a relatively low profile in the media since Joe Biden’s inauguration," reported Ankush Khardori. "That changed on Monday, when Weissmann penned an op-ed for the New York Times that sharply criticized the Justice Department’s investigation into the siege of the U.S. Capitol. It was an essay that captured the frustrations of some legal observers and former Justice Department prosecutors, but it drew immediate attention because it came from one of the most prominent and well-respected prosecutors in the country."

"In particular, Weissmann took issue with the department’s 'bottom up' criminal investigation and its apparent preference to focus on the Jan. 6 rioters over the former president himself," continued the report. "Drawing on his own experience, Weissmann wrote that this 'is actually the wrong approach for investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection' and that the public hearings of the Jan. 6 select committee 'should inspire the Justice Department to rethink its approach.'"

READ: Wisconsin Republicans push to overturn 2020 election as J6 holds televised hearings: report

“A myopic focus on the Jan. 6 riot is not the way to proceed if you are trying to follow the facts where they lead and to hold people ‘at any level’ criminally accountable, as Attorney General Merrick Garland promised,” wrote Weissman.

The Justice Department has taken some public steps to prosecute members of Trump's circle — but only a few. Most notable was the indictment of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress. Bannon is now belatedly moving to cooperate with congressional subpoenas.

Speaking to Khardori, Weissman clarified his position.

"The department has a lot more tools to investigate than Congress," said Weissman. "We’re in a very unusual situation where you see Congress doing a really, really good job and being out in front of, by all accounts, the federal government in many ways in terms of understanding and investigating what happened in terms of trying to undermine the last presidential election. And so I thought it was important to try and send at least my voice out there as to what I thought they were doing right and what I thought they were doing wrong."

You can read more here.

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