Merrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist who is the 86th and current United States attorney general. He previously served as a United States 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, but the Republican-led U.S. Senate effectively blocked Garland's appointment.
A native of the Chicago area, Garland attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he was a member 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. President Bill Clinton appointed Garland to the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1997, and he served as its chief judge from 2013 to 2020.
