Judge and former prosecutor Merrick Garland is confirmed as attorney general

© Drew Angerer Merrick Garland is the new US attorney general.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to confirm Merrick Garland Wednesday to serve as attorney general, giving the former prosecutor and widely respected federal judge the task of leading the Justice Department at a time when the nation faces domestic extremist threats and a reckoning over civil rights.

Garland was confirmed 70 to 30 by senators, with 20 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in supporting him. He is expected to be sworn in at the Justice Department Thursday.

Garland has vowed to restore public faith in a department that was embroiled in political controversy under the former president, Donald Trump, who sought both to undermine federal law enforcement when it scrutinized him and his associates and to wield its power to benefit him personally and politically.

At his confirmation hearing, Garland, 68, said that becoming attorney general would “be the culmination of a career I have dedicated to ensuring that the laws of our country are fairly and faithfully enforced and the rights of all Americans are protected.”

Garland has amassed decades of credentials in the law. He clerked for the Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., worked for years as a federal prosecutor, and led major investigations into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and others before being confirmed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1997.

He was chosen by President Barack Obama in 2016 to join the Supreme Court, only to see his nomination held up for eight months in an audacious political maneuver by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the majority leader at the time. The move ultimately allowed Trump to choose his own nominee to fill the seat.

Department employees have said that Garland’s performance at his confirmation hearing, a largely amicable affair, made them hopeful he would restore honor to the agency and lift up its 115,000-person workforce demoralized by the Trump-era rancor.

Restoring trust inside and outside the Justice Department will be key, as Garland will immediately oversee politically charged investigations, including a federal tax-fraud inquiry into President Biden’s son Hunter and a special counsel inquiry into the Russia investigation.

The department will also be involved in civil and criminal cases related to issues that have bitterly divided the country, including systemic racism, policing, regulation of big technology companies, LGBTQ rights, and other civil liberties matters.

Garland will also confront the rise of domestic extremism as law enforcement officials continue investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. His first briefings this week were expected to be with the FBI director, Christopher Wray, to discuss the threat and with Michael Sherwin, the outgoing top prosecutor in Washington who has led the Justice Department inquiry.

The Capitol riot investigation has grown closer to Roger Stone, one of Trump’s allies, and the FBI has found evidence of communications between right-wing extremists and White House associates, underscoring how closely Trump had aligned himself with such groups during his presidency.

During his confirmation hearing, Garland said that he would rely on his experience leading the department’s investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing to help again combat domestic extremism.

“I supervised the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, who sought to spark a revolution that would topple the federal government,” he said. “I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6, a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government.”

During the Clinton administration, he was chosen by Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general, to serve as her top deputy. He led the investigation into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which led to the conviction and execution of Timothy McVeigh, and went on to supervise other high-profile cases that included the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, and the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

The investigations helped cement Garland’s reputation as a fair-minded centrist. After his appeals court confirmation, he did not make major headlines again until 2016, when Obama nominated him to serve on the Supreme Court, a choice that won bipartisan support, including from conservative stalwarts like former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr.

But McConnell refused to consider his nomination, and Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacant seat in 2017. Garland stayed on at the Court of Appeals.

McConnell, who said last year that he would support Garland to serve as attorney general, voted for Garland’s confirmation Wednesday and was one of 20 Republicans who voted a day earlier to end debate over his nomination and move it to a full vote of the Senate.