Joe Biden has told aides and outside advisers that Attorney General Merrick Garland did not do enough to rein in a special counsel report stating that the president had diminished mental faculties, according to two people close to the president, as White House frustration with the head of the Justice Department grows.

The report from special counsel Robert Hur ultimately cleared Biden of any charges stemming from his handling of classified documents that were found at Biden’s think tank and his home. But Hur’s explanation for not bringing charges — that Biden would have persuaded the jury that he was a forgetful old man — upended the presidential campaign and infuriated the White House.

Biden and his closest advisers believe Hur went well beyond his purview and was gratuitous and misleading in his descriptions, according to those two people, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. And they put part of the blame on Garland, who they say should have demanded edits to Hur’s report, including around the descriptions of Biden’s faltering memory.

In White House meetings, aides have questioned why Garland felt the need to appoint a special counsel in the first place, though Biden has publicly said he supported the decision.

While Biden himself has not weighed in on Garland’s future, most of the president’s senior advisers do not believe that the attorney general would remain in his post for a possible second term, according to the two people.

“This has been building for a while,” said one of those people. “No one is happy”

Frustration within the White House at Garland has been growing steadily.

Last year, Biden privately denounced how long the probe into his son was taking, telling aides and outside allies that he believed the stress could send Hunter Biden spiraling back into addiction, according to the same two people. And the elder Biden, the people said, told those confidants that Garland should not have eventually empowered a special counsel to look into his son, believing that he again was caving to outside pressure.

In recent weeks, President Biden has grumbled to aides and advisers that had Garland moved sooner in his investigation into former President Donald Trump’s election interference, a trial may already be underway or even have concluded, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private matters. That trial still could take place before the election and much of the delay is owed not to Garland but to deliberate resistance put up by the former president and his team.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment. But one former senior Justice Department official noted that some of the frustrations being directed at Garland are better directed toward the White House. The president’s team had the option to exert executive privilege over elements of Hur’s report but declined to do so. And had Garland made edits to the report, he would have had to explain those redactions to Congress.

Beyond that, Garland felt the need to appoint a special counsel in the classified documents case in part because the president’s team bungled when the first documents were discovered.

“The way in which the White House story kept changing at the outset made it much more difficult for the Justice Department to resist having a special counsel,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Had there been a very clear story at the beginning, it would have been easier.”

Biden picked Garland as his attorney general with the stated desire to restore a semblance of independence at the Department of Justice that he and others believed was lost under Donald Trump. He announced the nomination the day after the Jan. 6 attacks at the Capital — a backdrop that Biden offered up as proof that someone of Garland’s stature and temperament was needed in the post.

“Your loyalty is not to me,” Biden said. “You won’t work for me. You are not the president or the vice president’s lawyer.”

Democrats close to Biden fear Garland has become too consumed by that instruction to appear impartial.

“What Democrats do is they bend over backwards not to look partisan, and then they end up hiring people that are partisan but in the other direction,” said a Biden donor, granted anonymity to speak freely about the top law enforcement official in the country. “There’s no question in my mind that the villain here is Merrick Garland.”

But others say Garland has done a commendable job balancing out extremely thorny legal and political matters while maintaining the DOJ’s credibility.

Originally Posted By yabbayabba⏩

Originally Posted By rampagefc77⏩

Originally Posted By rampagefc77⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By rampagefc77⏩

Originally Posted By OrdoAbchao⏩

Originally Posted By SillieBazzillie⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By AlfBundy⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By SillieBazzillie⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By nutsy54⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By GreatOldOne⏩

Originally Posted By OPGenesis⏩

Originally Posted By GreatOldOne⏩