The relationship between presidents and Justice Department leaders has waxed and waned over the decades depending on the personalities of the officeholders and the sensitivity of the investigations that have dominated the day. The dynamic between President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, was known to be fraught in part because of special counsel investigations that Garland oversaw into Biden's mishandling of classified information and into the firearms and tax affairs of his son Hunter.