Who is Lynn Garland? Merrick Garland's wife of 34 years is the granddaughter of a former Supreme Court Justice
Merrick Garland was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, March 10 to be the next attorney general of the United States in a 70-30 vote. Garland has been married to his wife Lynn since 1987.
The former chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit received praise from the members of both parties as he pledged to "fend off any effort by anyone" to politically influence the Justice Department's investigations. He has stressed the fact that his first priority would be to fully prosecute the "heinous" crimes committed in the attack on the Capitol on January 6.
"America can breathe a sigh of relief that we are finally going to have someone like Merrick Garland leading the Justice Department," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He called Garland "someone with integrity, independence, respect for the rule of law and credibility on both sides of the aisle."
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Here is everything to know about her and the relationship she shares with him:
Who is Lynn Garland?
Lynn is famous as the granddaughter of Samuel Irving Rosenman, who served as a justice on the New York Supreme Court. Rosenman also served as special counsel to former presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
She attended Harvard University and then Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management to earn a Master of Science in operations management. Back in 1987, she worked in Falls Church, Virginia, as a staff assistant to the vice president of operations for defense electronics contractor E-Systems Inc.'s Melpar division. It is unclear what she did in her career after that.
They have two children together
The couple lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Judge Garland and Lynn have two daughters, Rebecca and Jessica Garland. Rebecca graduated from Yale University with a degree in Psychology and went on to Harvard Business School to obtain a Master of Business Administration.
Jessica also went to Yale where she was previously the co-president of the university's Undergraduate Prison Project, a student-run social justice project that aims to promote dialogue around issues connected to mass incarceration and reduce recidivism and according to Heavy. She currently works as a regional operations director for DaVita Kidney Care, according to her Linkedin profile.
Garland promises to keep Justice Department away from politics
Garland promised to not allow politics affect the working of the agency, something which was not happening much when Trump was the president. “The president made abundantly clear in every public statement before and after my nomination that decisions about investigations and prosecutions will be left to the Justice Department. That was the reason I was willing to take on this job,” Garland said.
President Joe Biden has said that it will depend on Garland and his department’s career professionals to weigh in on any probe of Trump and to evaluate the ongoing tax probe of his son Hunter. In February, he also said that if confirmed, he would run the justice department independently, including on investigations that involve both the current and former presidents. “I am not the president’s lawyer, I am the United States’ lawyer,” he told Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz.