Merrick Garland Is Confirmed as Attorney General

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to confirm Merrick B. Garland on 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.

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

“Attorney General Garland will lead the Department of Justice with honesty and integrity,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “He has a big job ahead of him, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in his place.”

Judge Garland has vowed to restore public faith in a department embroiled in political controversy under President Donald J. 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, Judge 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.”

Judge Garland has amassed decades of credentials in the law. He clerked for 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 Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997.