Vitriol on both sides of the political spectrum threatens to win out over good-faith debate. The attack on the Capitol at a critical moment, the groundless claims of election theft, pose enormous challenges for the law and particularly the United States Department of Justice. Fortunately for Attorney General Merrick Garland there is guidance—from the founding era and, more recently, the advice then-Assistant Attorney General Theodore Olson gave to his boss Attorney General William French Smith in 1982 during Ronald Reagan's first term.

The Knight Center for the First Amendment at Columbia via the Freedom of Information Act obtained confidential memoranda of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel. That office advises presidents and department heads in the way the Judiciary Act of 1789 described the attorney general as: "a meet person, learned in the law … whose duty it shall be to … prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and … give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any departments."