> As Governor Phil Murphy’s pick for top cop, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has become the perfect chameleon, changing his ideological stripes against whatever political backdrop he finds himself. Since taking office in 2018, Grewal has spent much of his first two years suing and publicly berating Donald Trump. His department directives have also seeded a radical police reform agenda amid claims that they were already on the drawing board long before the 2020 summer of unrest > --- > Hours before arriving in Asbury Park came sudden word that Grewal was resigning to take a federal job, fueling speculation of friction between an authoritarian governor and an attorney general whose more radical brand of progressivism got the bigger headlines. Grewal had sided with forces aligned against the cops, prompted local prosecutors to look away from COVID violations at BLM protests, sought the power to impose state consent decrees upon police departments, supported antiracism training for K-12 schoolkids, and was suffering a thousand cuts from union lawsuits targeting his policies. His persona had become political baggage too heavy to lift in a gubernatorial election year. > Grewal had used Jersey cops as steppingstones to showcase his liberal qualifications for a Biden appointment to the bench. Instead, he’s heading off to rally the guvvies enforcing the rules and regs at the Securities and Exchange Commission. For Grewal, an elephant's burial ground of sorts.