Merrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 86th United States attorney general from 2021 to 2025. He previously served as a circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021. In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court; however, the U.S. Senate refused to hold a confirmation hearing.
A native of the Chicago area, Garland attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., and then practiced corporate litigation at Arnold & Porter, after which he worked as a federal prosecutor in the United States Department of Justice, where he supervised the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers.