Oklahoma City a defining moment in Merrick Garland's career

[...] of the bombing, Garland was 42 and principal associate deputy attorney general, a top lieutenant to Attorney General Janet Reno.

When the FBI plane taking him to Oklahoma City stopped to refuel, he learned that McVeigh was in custody, recalled J. Gilmore Childers, a former federal prosecutor who accompanied Garland.

[...] officials were also pursuing a second suspect, "John Doe No. 2," who they worried might bomb again, a fear that was ultimately unfounded.

Garland was "the face of the department out there at the time where people needed to believe that their government was capable of responding to this," said Aitan Goelman, a prosecutor on the case.

At a hearing for McVeigh a week after the bombing, he walked an FBI agent through four hours of testimony, and a judge ordered McVeigh held in jail.

[...] though McVeigh was convicted and executed in 2001, Jones has supported Garland's nomination, urging President Barack Obama to nominate Garland in a letter just days after Justice Antonin Scalia's death.