evidence: What Happened With Merrick Garland In 2016 And Why It Matters Now So much has happened in the past two years that many may have forgotten what happened to Merrick Garland in the spring of 2016. [...] So it was safer, in the judgments of spring and summer 2016, to let the Republicans look intransigent and unfair and hope somebody noticed. Perhaps the injustice to Garland would help Democrats win seats in supposedly blue states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and even red ones such as Missouri and North Carolina.