Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland

: Photo from Wikimedia Commons / Author of Photo: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit / Source of Photo: cdn-news.wgbh.org

Overview

* Became President Biden’s Attorney General in 2021
* Claims that “domestic terrorism” by “white supremacists” is among America’s leading problems


Background

Merrick Brian Garland was born to Jewish parents in Chicago on November 13, 1952, and grew up in Lincolnwood, Illinois. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1974 and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1977. After completing his education, Garland worked as a law clerk for U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Henry Friendly (1977-78) and Associate Supreme Court Justice William Brennan (1978-79); special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General (1979-81); a private-practice lawyer (1981-89, 1992-93); Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (1989-92); Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Justice Department’s Criminal Prosecutions Division (1993-94); Principal Associate Deputy U.S. Attorney General (1994-97); and a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1997-present). Garland has also taught antitrust law at Harvard Law School, and co-chaired the District of Columbia Bar’s administrative law section.

As Deputy Attorney General, Garland supervised the prosecution of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski in the 1990s. He also managed the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a domestic terrorist truck bombing that killed at least 168 people and injured more than 680 others.

Garland and the Environmental Protection Agency

According to TheBlaze.com, “During his time on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals … Garland has stood with the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] in nearly every case…. [He] not only ruled in favor of the EPA—and in some cases the environmental lobby—but he also typically wrote the court’s opinion. Further, he was occasionally the lone dissenter in rulings that went against the EPA or the environmental lobby.” Some examples:

  • In 1999, Garland sided with the EPA in a challenge to the Resource Conservation and Recovering Act, a law authorizing that Agency to fully control “the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste.”
  • In Whitman v. American Trucking Association (2001), in which the trucking lobby and three U.S. states challenged the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard, Garland sided with the EPA .
  • In American Corn Growers Association v. EPA (2002), Garland dissented in a 2-1 court ruling that struck down a number of EPA “anti-haze” regulations which placed an enormously heavy burden on businesses to cut emissions. While Garland argued that the Clean Air Act expressly authorized the EPA to make judgments regarding pollution reduction, the majority held that the regulations in question required businesses to “spend millions of dollars for new technology that will have no appreciable effect” on air quality.
  • In 2003, Garland voted to uphold the federal government’s application of the Endangered Species Act to the arroyo toad, and the government’s claim that the U.S. Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause authorized the EPA to protect the toad even though it lived in only one state, California. Judge John Roberts, who was then serving on the same court as Garland, challenged the logic of Garland’s opinion by questioning how “a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California” could be a legitimate concern for federal commerce regulation.
  • In Sierra Club v. EPA (2004), Garland sided with the environmental lobby against the Bush administration EPA’s effort to delay the enforcement of ozone standards in Washington, DC.
  • In National Parks Conservancy Association v. Manson (2005), Garland voted to give environmental advocacy groups standing to challenge the authorization of a new power plant.
  • In Cement Kiln Recycling Coal v. EPA (2007), Garland voted to reject an industry challenge to rules that regulated the burning of hazardous waste for fuel.

Garland & The Second Amendment

Garland has also rendered noteworthy decisions in the area of gun rights. In 2000, for instance, he voted to uphold what National Review Online (NRO) calls “an illegal Clinton-era regulation that created an improvised gun-registration requirement.” Though Congress had banned federal gun-registration mandates 32 years earlier, the Clinton administration nevertheless made it a practice to retain, for six months, the National Instant Background Check System’s (NICS) records of lawful gun buyers. “By storing these records,” says NRO, “the federal government was creating an informal gun registry that violated the 1968 law. Worse still, the Clinton program even violated the 1994 law that had created the NICS system in the first place. Congress directly forbade the government from retaining background-check records for law-abiding citizens.”

In 2007 Garland supported a motion seeking a reconsideration of a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to strike down parts of the District of Columbia’s highly restrictive gun-control law (which prohibited city residents from even keeping guns in their homes for self-defense, and which the Court had originally deemed incompatible with the Second Amendment). Author and attorney Dave Kopel opined that Garland’s vote was “no surprise, since [he] had earlier signaled [his] strong hostility to gun-owner rights” in a previous case. Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, for his part, said that “the only reason” why Garland supported the 2007 motion was because he wished “to overturn the pro-Second Amendment ruling.” A number of years later, Chris Cox, the head of the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm, stated that “a basic analysis of Merrick Garland’s judicial record shows that he does not respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.”

Additional Key Rulings

Among Garland’s additional key rulings are the following:

  • In 2003, Garland joined a D.C. Circuit Court opinion prohibiting terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay from appealing their cases in civilian courts—a decision that the Supreme Court would subsequently overturn.
  • In 2008, Garland authored the majority opinion overturning a Combatant Status Review Tribunal’s ruling that a particular suspect who was said to be affiliated with an Islamic terror group could be detained as an “enemy combatant” and tried in a military tribunal rather than in civilian court.
  • That same year, Garland participated in a unanimous panel opinion invalidating Federal Election Commission regulations for being insufficiently stringent in implementing the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill, whose purpose was to: (a) put restrictions on paid advertising during the weeks just prior to political elections, and (b) tightly regulate the amount of money that political parties and candidates could accept from donors.
  • In Saleh v. Titan Corp. (2009), Garland dissented from a court panel’s decision to bar Iraqi victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison from suing American military contractors who had permitted and/or participated in the wrongdoing. In short, Garland rejected the notion that military and federal executive officials should have exclusive authority to adjudicate and punish, under federal law, the transgressions of personnel working for them during wartime.

Garland and Big Labor

In a March 2016 column in The Wall Street Journal, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) president and CEO Juanita Duggan described Garland as highly antithetic toward small business and, conversely, extremely supportive of big labor unions. “[I]n 16 major labor decisions of Judge Garland’s that we [NFIB] examined,” said Duggan, “he ruled 16-0 in favor of the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board].” “Elsewhere in the Journal,” noted syndicated columnist Dennis Prager, “the editorial board wrote that they can’t think of a single issue on which Garland would vote differently from the four liberal Justices that already sit on the bench.”

Obama Nominates Garland for the Supreme Court

Also in March 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Garland to replace the recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Because this nomination was made during the final year of Obama’s presidency, the Republican-majority Senate refused to hold a hearing or vote on it, insisting that the next elected president should fill the vacancy instead of the outgoing Obama. Garland’s nomination lasted 293 days and expired on January 3, 2017, at the end of the 114th Congress.

Garland & Abortion

On March 4, 2021, Terence Jeffrey wrote in The Daily Signal about an abortion- and immigration-related case which Garland had overseen in late 2017. It involved a 17-year-old pregnant girl who was 7 months pregnant and was caught illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States. Wrote Jeffrey:

“The agency that arrested this pregnant teenager turned her over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which placed her in a shelter. She demanded an abortion. But the office, which had a policy of not facilitating abortions, declined to facilitate hers—as it sought to find her a sponsor. Once a sponsor took custody of her, moreover, she would have been free to terminate her child in the United States.

“But some lawyers took up the case of this pregnant illegal alien teen and sued the government on her behalf. The Fifth Amendment, they argued, guarantees abortions to pregnant foreign teenagers arrested while illegally trying to enter the United States. An Obama-appointed district judge agreed.

“The Department of Health and Human Services appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where Merrick Garland … was chief judge. Texas was joined by eight other states in filing an amicus brief that made a simple point: This illegal alien was free to leave the United States and pursue an abortion elsewhere. A three-judge panel ruled 2-to-1 in favor of HHS. […]

“The illegal alien’s lawyers immediately asked for the full appeals court to consider the case. It did—and issued a per curiam order permitting the district court to let the teen have the abortion. Garland, whose name is inscribed at the top of that order, mutely stood behind it. […] The illegal alien’s baby was aborted the next day.”

Garland Becomes President Biden’s Attorney General

On January 20, 2021, newly inaugurated President Joe Biden nominated Garland for the position of United States Attorney General. The Senate confirmed Garland as Attorney General on March 10, 2021, in a 70-30 vote.

Garland on Immigration Policy

During Garland’s Senate confirmation hearing on February 22, 2021, he was highly critical of the “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had adopted in the early days of the Trump administration. “I think that the policy was shameful,” said Garland. “I can’t imagine anything worse than tearing parents from their children, and we will provide all the cooperation that we possibly can.”

During the same confirmation hearing, Republican Senator Josh Hawley Hawley asked Garland if he believed that “illegal entry” into the United States should remain a crime. Garland replied: “I haven’t thought about that question. I just haven’t thought about that question. I think the president has made clear that we are a country with borders and with a concern about national security. I don’t know if a proposal to decriminalize but still make it unlawful to re-enter. I just don’t know the answer to that question. I haven’t thought about it.”

Hawley then asked Garland if he would “continue to prosecute unlawful border crossings” if confirmed as Attorney General. “This is, again, a question of allocation of resources,” Garland replied. “The department will prevent unlawful crossing. I don’t know. I have to admit, I just don’t know exactly what the conditions are and how this is done. I don’t know what the current program even is with respect to this. I assume the answer would be yes, but I don’t know what the issues surrounding it are.”

Garland Declines to Label Antifa & BLM Violence As “Terrorism”

During his Senate confirmation hearing as well, Garland emphasized the Justice Department’s responsibility to “battl[e] extremist attacks on our democratic institutions” and described the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by several hundred people claiming to be Trump supporters as “the most heinous attack on the democratic process” that he had ever seen. Republican Senator Josh Hawley — referring to the numerous, much-more-violent attacks that leftists affiliated with Antifa and Black Lives Matter had carried out against federal courthouses in Portland and Seattle during 2020 — asked Garland: “Do you regard assaults on federal courthouses or other federal property as attacks of domestic extremism, domestic terrorism?” In his reply, Garland suggested that the leftist violence did not rise to the level of “terrorism” because it mostly occurred at night:

“Well senator, my own definition, which is about the same as the statutory definition, is the use of violence or threats of violence in an attempt to disrupt the democratic processes. So an attack on a courthouse while in operation, trying to prevent judges from actually deciding cases, that plainly is domestic extremism, domestic terrorism. An attack simply on a government property at night or any other circumstances is a clear crime and a serious one and should be punished. I don’t know enough about the facts of the example you’re talking about, but that’s where I draw the line. One is—both are criminal, one is a core attack on our democratic institutions.”

Garland and Consent Decrees Involving Local Police Departments

On April 16, 2021, Attorney General Garland reversed a Trump-era policy limiting the number of consent decrees that the Department of Justice could use in pushing for changes at police departments and other agencies charged with abuse or misconduct. As Newsmax.com explains: “Consent decrees are court-approved legal agreements reached without litigation,” that allow judges to “keep tabs on a police department to make sure it is complying with court orders.” In a memo he wrote to all U.S. attorneys and DOJ leaders, Garland stated that the agency would ”return to the traditional process that allows the heads of litigating components to approve most settlement agreements, consent decrees, and the use of monitors in cases involving state and local governmental entities.”

Investigating the Minneapolis Police Department after George Floyd’s Death

At a press conference on April 21, 2021 — the day after a jury had found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murder for killing a black Minneapolis man named George Floyd 11 months earlier — Garland announced that the Justice Department would be conducting a “fully comprehensive review” examining whether the Minneapolis Police Department had engaged in a “pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing” — meaning “discriminatory conduct,” “using excessive force,” and “unlawful” “treatment of those with behavioral health disabilities.” Garland also issued the following statement: “While the state’s prosecution was successful, I know that nothing can fill the void that the loved ones of George Floyd have felt since his death. The Justice Department has previously announced a federal civil rights investigation into the death of George Floyd. This investigation is ongoing.”

Garland on Election Audits, Voting Rights, & Election Laws

On June 11, 2021, Garland announced that the Department of Justice was “applying scrutiny” to various battleground states’ post-election audits of the hotly disputed 2020 races and was offering “guidance” vis-a-vis those audits. That is, the DOJ might consider placing roadblocks in the way of the audits if the Department felt that they ran afoul of federal laws meant to protect voting records and prevent voter intimidation. Added Garland: “We are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access and where we see violations we will not hesitate to act. We are also scrutinizing current laws and practices in order to determine whether they discredit against black voters and other voters of color. Particularly concerning with in this regard are several studies showing that in some jurisdictions nonwhite voters must wait in line substantially longer than white voters to cast their ballots.”

  • Referencing a recount effort of millions of votes which was in-progress in Maricopa County, Arizona, Garland stated further: “Some jurisdictions, based on disinformation, have utilized abnormal post-election audit methodologies that may put the integrity of the voting process at risk and may undermine public confidence in our democracy. The Justice Department will do everything its power to prevent election fraud and to vigorously prosecute it. But many of the justifications proffered in support of these post-election audits and restrictions on voting have relied on assertions on material vote fraud in the 2020 election that have been refuted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies … [M]any of the changes are not even calibrated to address the kinds of voter fraud that are alleged as justification.”
  • Garland also announced that within the next 30 days, the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division would double the number of staff members whom it assigned to voting-rights enforcement.

Eleven days later, on June 22, 2021, Senate Republicans used a filibuster to kill the For The People Act, a radical “election reform” bill supported by nearly every Democrat in both the House and Senate. Three days after that, on June 25, Garland announced that the Justice Department was suing Georgia over the state’s Election Integrity Act (SB 202), which had been signed into law in late March. The aim of Garland and the Democrats was to use the DOJ lawsuit to achieve the same objectives as they had sought, but failed, to gain via the legislative process with the For The People Act. Said Garland in his announcement:

“Today, the Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia,” Garland said. “Our complaint alleges that recent changes to Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Several studies show that Georgia experienced record voter turnout and participation rates in the 2020 election cycle. Approximately 2/3 of eligible voters in the state cast a ballot in the November election, just over the national average. This is cause for celebration. But then, in March of 2021, Georgia’s legislature passed SB202. Many of that law’s provisions make it harder for people to vote. The complaint alleges that the state enacted those restrictions with the purpose of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.”

Contrary to Garland’s assertion, however, SB 202 simply sought to restore some of the same election-integrity measures — e.g., voter ID requirements — that had been in place prior to the changes that were made to the state’s election laws as a result of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the provisions of SB 202 actually made it easier to vote in Georgia, than had been the case prior to 2020.

Garland Says “Domestic Terrorism” by “White Supremacists” Are Among America’s Leading Problems

On June 15, 2021, Garland announced the unveiling of the Biden administration’s new “First National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” an initiative designed to combat what Garland viewed as one of America’s most serious problems: “domestic terrorism” carried out mostly by conservative adherents to a doctrine of “white supremacism.” Below are some of Garland’s remarks from that day, remarks in which he: (a) cast the Trump supporters who had breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6 as uniquely evil; (b) warned of the allegedly enormous threat posed by violent white supremacists; (c) likened such people to genocidal Islamic terrorists; and (d) gave anecdotal examples of past terrorist incidents that had been perpetrated exclusively by whites:

  • “Our current effort comes on the heels of another large and heinous attack, this time the January 6th assault on our nation’s capital…. Over the 160 days since the attack, we have arrested over 480 individuals and brought hundreds of charges against those who attacked law enforcement officers and obstructed justice and used deadly and dangerous weapons to those ends.”
  • “In March, [America’s intelligence and law-enforcement agencies] concluded that domestic violent extremists posed an elevated threat to the homeland in 2021. Our experience on the ground confirms this; the number of open FBI domestic terrorism investigations this year has increased significantly. According to an unclassified summary of the March Intelligence Assessment, the two most lethal elements of the domestic violence extremist threat are racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists. In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.”
  • “[E]ven as we augment our efforts against domestic terrorism, we remain relentless in our focus on international terrorism perpetrated by foreign terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS.”
  • “I’m personally struck by three events that occurred not far from each other at different points in the last 100 years. When I visited the Greenwood District in April of this year, where Black Wall Street once thrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I was struck by the failure to do justice after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre…. Almost seventy-five years later, just over a hundred miles Southwest of Tulsa in Oklahoma City, after an attack that resulted in the deaths of 168 people, the Justice Department successfully apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted the men responsible for the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. And five years ago across Oklahoma’s Northern border, in Kansas, federal authorities disrupted a plot to bomb an apartment complex and its mosque and to kill its residents, immigrants from Somalia, working with joint terrorism, task force partners, the government prevented the bombing, no one died, and those who sought to commit it were convicted of their crimes.”

Garland on Immigration & Asylum Policy

On June 16, 2021, Garland struck down two immigration opinions written by Jeff Sessions and William Barr, his predecessors as Attorneys General under the Trump administration, opinions that had placed limits on asylum eligibility for victims of domestic violence and for those seeking asylum based on their ties to persecuted family members. As The Hill reported: “Both the decisions vacated by Garland limited who could qualify for asylum as a persecuted member of a ‘particular social group,’ setting a precedent in immigration courtrooms across the country where such cases are weighed. In one case, Barr blocked asylum claims for those who sought it based on a family member’s persecution.” But in Garland’s calculus, Barr’s decision was “inconsistent with the decisions of several courts of appeals that have recognized families as particular social groups.” Garland also reversed a Sessions decision with regard to domestic violence victims that, according to Garland, “threatens to create confusion and discourage careful case-by-case adjudication of asylum claims.”

In late July 2021, Garland wrote a letter challenging Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that — in an effort to prevent any further spread of the coronavirus pandemic — restricted the ground transportation of illegal migrants, most of whom were unvaccinated, to various locations across the state by the Biden Administration. The migrants in question had either been detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or ordered deported under the Title 42 authority of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Some excerpts from Garland’s letter:

“I urge you to immediately rescind Executive Order GA 3 7, entitled Relating to the transportation of migrants during the COVID-19 disaster. The Order purports to mandate that ‘[n]o person, other than a federal, state, or local law-enforcement official, shall provide ground transportation to a group of migrants who have been detained by [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] for crossing the border illegally or who would have been subject to expulsion under the Title 42 order.’ As explained below, the Order is both dangerous and unlawful. […]

“Moreover, Texas has no authority to interfere with the United States’ ‘broad, un-doubted power over the subject of immigration” by impairing the United States’ release of individuals and the ability of those individuals to comply with federal immigration law. To the extent the Order interferes with immigration enforcement, the Order is unconstitutional.

“In short, the Order is contrary to federal law and cannot be enforced. Accordingly, consistent with its authorities under federal law, the United States will continue its noncitizen transportation operations unabated. I urge you to immediately rescind the Order. If you do not do so, I am providing notice consistent with Section 1-10 .100 of the Justice Department’s Justice Manual that the United States intends to pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.”

On July 30, 2021, Garland’s DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas, as a challenge to Gov. Abbott’s aforementioned executive order. The lawsuit argued that:  “The executive order violates the Supremacy Clause and causes injury to the United States and to individuals whom the United States is charged to protect, jeopardizing the health and safety of noncitizens in federal custody, risking the safety of federal law enforcement personnel and their families, and exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.” Further, the suit claimed that the governor’s order obstructed Congress from performing its duty to craft and enforce immigration laws. The lawsuit also warned: “If CBP (Customs and Border Protection) is unable to transfer noncitizens out of CBP facilities, CBP detention numbers and the average time individuals are in custody will rise, conditions will deteriorate, and there will be a greater risk of COVID-19 transmission to noncitizens and staff.”

DOJ Orders the U.S. Treasury to Deliver Former President Donald Trump’s Tax Returns to Congress

In a letter dated July 30, 2021 and written by Acting Assistant Attorney General Dawn Johnsen, Garland’s DOJ ordered the U.S. Treasury to deliver former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to Congress. Wrote Johnsen: “The statute at issue here is unambiguous: ‘Upon written request’ of the chairman of one of the three congressional tax committees, the Secretary ‘shall furnish’ the requested tax information to the Committee,” Johnsen wrote. “Applying the proper degree of deference due the Committee, we believe that there is ample basis to conclude that its June 2021 Request for former President Trump’s tax information would further the Committee’s principal stated objective of assessing the IRS’s presidential audit program—a plainly legitimate area for congressional inquiry and possible legislation.” As the Daily Caller noted: “The Ways and Means Committee originally requested Trump’s returns in mid-June. Democrats in Congress have long tried to obtain Trump’s tax returns by force, subpoenaing Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and his IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, to deliver the returns to Congress in 2019. Mnuchin held up the process, however, and Trump’s DOJ at the time released a memo arguing that ‘the Constitution requires the Committee to demonstrate a legitimate legislative purpose,’” according to The Hill.

Garland and Abortion: The Texas “Heartbeat Act”

On September 6, 2021, Garland released a statement on how the Department of Justice would respond to the state of Texas’ recently passed “Heartbeat Act,” which placed restrictions on the performance of abortions after a baby’s heartbeat could be detected, generally around six weeks after conception. The law did not authorize law-enforcement to enforce the statute, but instead permitted individual citizens to report on those who chose to facilitate or perform abortions after the six-week period. When the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, declined a request that it issue an emergency order to stop the bill, Garland said the DOJ would “provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack.” “We have reached out to US attorneys’ offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to discuss our enforcement authorities,” he added. “We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act.” (He was referring to the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibited anyone from “intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with” any person in order to prevent them from “obtaining or providing reproductive health services.”)

On September 8, 2021, Garland announced that the Biden administration was suing Texas over the Heartbeat Act. “The Department of Justice has a duty to defend the constitution of the United States and to uphold the rule of law,” said Garland. “Today we fulfill that duty by filing the lawsuit I have just described.”

On October 18, 2021, Garland’s DOJ asked the Supreme Court to block enforcement of the Texas Heartbeat Act, even though the Court had refused in September to issue an injunction against the law.

Garland Colludes with the NSBA & Orders the FBI to Investigate Parents Who Oppose Critical Race Theory & Radical Transgender Ideology in the Classroom

The summer of 2021 saw many school board meetings where parents and community members vocally challenged local school officials over the inclusion of Critical Race Theory and other controversial topics — such as sexually explicit content, radical transgender ideology, and coronavirus mask mandates — in school curricula and practices. On September 29, 2021, the National School Boards Association (NSBA), a leftist organization representing local school boards, sent a letter to President Biden saying that the federal government should use “counterterrorism tools” to investigate reports of violence and threats against school board members to see if they violate federal laws against domestic terrorism and hate crimes. Statutes like the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, said NSBA, should be used to thwart crimes and violence targeting K-12 officials, on the premise that such acts could be classified as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” Citing anger about Critical Race Theory as a major factor fueling disruptions and antipathy toward educators, the letter stated: “These threats or actual acts of violence against our school districts are impacting the delivery of educational services to students and families.” “These incidents are beyond random acts,” said NSBA interim Executive Director and CEO Chip Slaven in an email. “What we are now seeing is a pattern of threats and violence occurring across state lines and via online platforms, which is why we need the federal government’s assistance.”

During a September 30 press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, addressing the subject of the NSBA letter, characterized the aforementioned targeting of school board officials as “horrible,” adding: “We’d encourage individuals to report any threats they face to local and state law enforcement agencies.”

On October 4, 2021, Attorney General Garland, in an effort to federalize local school boards nationwide, ordered the FBI to begin investigating what he described as a recent spike in “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school administrators. In a memo, Garland directed U.S. attorneys and the FBI to collaborate with local officials to identify and prosecute any perceived threats to such administrators. Said the memo: “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools. While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, the protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views. Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

Notably, Garland did not provide any type of operational definition of what would constitute “harassment” or “intimidation.”

Parents Defending Education, a conservative organization, described Garland’s memo as “a coordinated attempt to intimidate dissenting voices in the debates surrounding America’s underperforming K-12 education.”

Conservative broadcaster and legal scholar Mark Levin, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan administration, said the following about Garland’s memo on October 5, 2021:

“American Marxism is on the rise. Merrick Garland, the attorney general of the United States, is now using the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Community Relations Service, and Office of Justice Programs. He’s using all of them to unleash against parents and taxpayers and local communities who are protesting local school boards. I challenge anyone that tell us the federal authority that this attorney general and the rest of his band of reprobates has, to interfere in local school boards, to nationalize school board meetings, local police officers, and school board security officers are in charge of keeping the peace in township and community school board meetings. […] They have decided, ladies and gentlemen, that those of you who protest are domestic terrorists. […]

“The letter from the National School Board[s] Association, in my view, was an inside job. They wrote this letter to the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on September 29, and five days later, including the weekend, we get a memo from the attorney general of the United States, dated yesterday, to the the director of the FBI, the director of the executive office of U.S. Attorneys, the assistant attorney general, criminal division.

“It states, ‘In recent months, there’s been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools. While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views to intimidate individuals based on their views.’

“What does that mean? It means nothing. There’s no federal law that says, quote unquote, you can’t intimidate individuals based on their views. It’s done all the time. […] If there are threats of violence, state and local law is what addresses it, not federal law. […]

“So, in other words, if any school board member, any educational bureaucrat, any teacher, anybody, any staff member thinks they’re being, quote unquote threatened, there’s going to be a hotline. And so they’ll send the FBI out to interview the parents, they’ll send the FBI out. You know what, this reminds me of the East German Stasi. […] The purpose of this is clear. It is to send fear through our communities all over the country, fear through parents, fear through taxpayers. To suppress your First Amendment right of free speech and assembly, to suppress your right to question your elected representatives. It is undermining your right to protest. And you can even yell at protests. That’s legal, too. […] The federal government has absolutely no legal authority, none, to be monitoring any of this, to be involved in any of this, period. This is totalitarianism. That is exactly what it is.”

Notably, the NSBA provided no solid evidence corroborating its claim that incidents of threats and violence against school board members had in fact been rising. When Rep. Jim Jordan asked Garland, during an October 21, 2021 House Judiciary Committee hearing, when he personally had “first review[ed] the data concerning this so-called ‘disturbing’ uptick,” the Attorney General replied: “So, I read the letter, and we have been seeing over time –” At that point, Jordan interjected: “So, you read the letter, that’s your source? Are there some studies on that or some investigation someone did that said there’s been a disturbing uptick, or did you just take the words of the National School Boards Association?” Garland replied: “When the National School Board Association, which represents thousands of school boards and school board members says that there are these kinds of threats, when we read in the newspapers reports of threats of violence, when that is in the context of threats of threats of violence against all–”  Jordan again attempted to interject at that point, but was told that his time for questioning had expired.

On October 7, 2021, the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) — which describes itself as “a national, nonprofit organization working to promote the rule of law, prevent executive overreach, [and] ensure due process and equal protection for all Americans” — sent a letter to Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice. AFL’s letter exposed the fact that the Biden administration (through Merrick Garland and the DOJ) had secretly colluded with the National School Boards Association to create a false pretext for the unconstitutional suppression of parents’ free-speech rights regarding the education of their children — all for purely political reasons related to the effect that parental protests against leftist indoctrination in the schools might have on the 2022 midterm elections. Some key excerpts:

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized American parents’ fundamental liberty interest in and Constitutional right to control and direct the education of their own children. On this basis alone, the nationwide protests by parents against public school policies and practices—regarding Critical Race Theory indoctrination; antireligious and anti-family gender ideology; and/or forced online education and mask mandates—are entitled to the most robust federal constitutional protection. Instead, in light of the Attorney General’s Memorandum of October 4, 2021, it appears the Department of Justice is committing the full weight of its federal law enforcement resources to prevent parents from exercising constitutionally-protected rights and privileges, for inappropriate partisan purposes.

Our understanding of the facts is as follows:

• Parents nationwide have protested public school policies and practices associated with, inter alia, the teaching or indoctrination of K-12 students in certain principles of Critical Race Theory and gender-related ideology.

• Key Biden Administration stakeholders, including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and others, have combined to oppress, threaten, and intimidate parents to chill and prevent them from exercising the rights or privileges secured by the Constitution. To date these efforts, though extensive, have generally proven ineffectual.

• In early September, Biden Administration stakeholders held discussions regarding avenues for potential federal action against parents with a key Biden Domestic Policy Council official (Jane Doe #1) and White House staff (John Doe #1). Stakeholders also held discussions with senior department officials, including at least one political appointee in the department’s Civil Rights Division (Jane Doe #2). Jane Doe #1, John Doe #1, and others in the White House separately expressed concern regarding the potential partisan political impact of parent mobilization and organization around school issues in the upcoming midterm elections.

• Upon information and belief, at the express direction of or with the express consent of Jane Doe #1, Jane Doe #2 and other Biden Administration officials developed a plan to use a letter from an outside group (“not the usual suspects”) as pretext for federal action to chill, deter, and discourage parents from exercising their constitutional rights and privileges.

Upon information and belief, in or about mid-September work began on development of what became the Attorney General’s Memorandum. Concerns expressed by department staff included (1) the absence of federal law enforcement nexus and authority, and (2) the constitutionally protected nature of parent protests. However, Jane Doe #2 made it clear this was a White House priority and a deliverable would be created.

• On or about September 29, citing legal authorities including the Patriot Act, the “National School Boards Association” made public a letter demanding federal action against parents citing authorities including the Patriot Act. The justification for federal action included, inter alia, parents were “posting watchlists against school boards and spreading misinformation (sic) that boards are adopting critical race theory curriculum and working to maintain online learning by haphazardly attributing it to COVID-19.” It is not yet clear whether and to what extent drafts of this letter were shared with Biden Administration officials, including Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2, and whether changes were suggested or made by them, prior to the ostensible public release date.

• On October 4, the Attorney General’s Memorandum was made public. The short time frame between the September 29 letter and the Attorney General’s Memorandum suggests that either the entire matter was precoordinated and the September 29 but pretext, or that the normal clearance process and standard order both within the department (including legal sufficiency review by the Office of Legal Counsel, the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal Division, the Office of Legal Policy, and other components), and between the department and the White House Counsel’s Office and the Office of Management and Budget, were bypassed or corrupted.

• On October 5, there was a follow up call involving, inter alia, the White House Counsel’s Office, Jane Doe # 2, and many other Biden Administration political and career officials. The briefing included how to talk about “equity” initiatives, avoid liability for violating discrimination laws, and hide “equity” measures, initiatives, and action from Freedom of Information Act disclosure.

Accordingly, we request your Office investigate whether the Attorney General’s Memorandum was formulated and issued based on improper considerations. At this point, the dangers inherent in the undue politicization of the department’s criminal and civil law enforcement authorities, and in the corruption of the department’s standard order and process, should be evident.

On November 16, 2021, The Federalist reported:

“New whistleblower documents suggest Attorney General Merrick Garland lied to lawmakers last month when he denied that the Department of Justice was being weaponized to target concerned parents at school board meetings.

“Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in late October, Garland said the agency’s interest in parents was provoked by a letter from the National School Boards Association asking for federal law enforcement to use ‘domestic terrorism’ laws to go after those who are concerned about what is taught in classrooms.

“’The National School Board Association, which represents thousands of school boards and school board members, says that there are these kinds of threats,’ Garland said, explaining the DOJ’s investigation of parents while denying that divisions dedicated to counterterrorism were being deployed. Garland told lawmakers he could not ‘imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor … a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorists.’ ‘I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards for whatever reason constitute domestic terrorism,’ Garland said. ‘It’s not even a close question.’

“Records from an anonymous whistleblower released by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Tuesday [November 16], however, reveal that the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division is engaged in categorizing threat assessments relating to parents with a ‘threat tag.’  An internal email attached to a letter from Jordan to the attorney general references an Oct. 4 memorandum from Garland for the FBI to address ‘investigations and assessments of threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,’ with the tag.

“’This disclosure provides specific evidence that federal law enforcement operationalized counterterrorism tools at the behest of a left-wing special interest group against concerned parents,’ Jordan wrote. ‘We know from public reporting that the National School Boards Association coordinated with the White House prior to sending a letter dated September 29 to President Biden labeling parents as domestic terrorists and urging the Justice Department to use federal tools — including the Patriot Act — to target parents.’”

Similarly, the New York Post reported on November 17, 2021:

“A Republican congressman accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of lying to Congress last month based on an FBI whistleblower’s reveal of emails showing the bureau used counterterrorism methods to track alleged parent threats against school board members.

“[On November 16] Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee released the whistleblower-provided email [dated October 20, 2021] in which top FBI officials directed agents to use an ‘EDUOFFICIALS’ threat tag to track the behavior. The tag and tracking appears to fly in the face of testimony Garland gave where he insisted that parents were not being targeted as potential domestic terrorists by the FBI.

“’This brings that really to a point that Attorney General Garland basically perjured himself in front of Congress and should really face the consequences before this,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) told Fox & Friends First during an appearance with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) on Wednesday [November 17].

“The Oct. 20 message, which was sent to the congress members by the whistleblower, was signed by FBI assistant director for counterterrorism Timothy Langan and FBI criminal division assistant director Calvin Shivers. ‘We ask that your offices apply the threat tag to investigations and assessments of threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,’ it reads.

On May 20, 2022, the NSBA, after conducting an internal review, admitted to having colluded with senior White House officials to develop the September 29, 2021 letter (to President Biden) saying that the federal government should use “counterterrorism tools” to investigate reports of violence and threats against school board members to see if they violated federal laws against domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

NSBA investigators placed almost all blame for the September 29th letter on Chip Slaven, who: (a) was NSBA’s Interim CEO and Executive Director at the time, and (b) worked closely with White House Senior Advisor to the President Mary C. Wall, who, according to the findings of the internal inquiry, “had advanced knowledge of the planned Letter and its specific contents and interacted with Mr. Slaven regarding the Letter during its drafting.”

The findings of the NSBA inquiry stated further that: “[E]vidence indicates that White House officials discussed the existence of the Letter, its requests, and the contents of the Letter with Department of Justice officials more than a week before the Letter was finalized and sent to President Biden.  Ms. Wall requested an advanced copy of the Letter to provide to her White House and Department of Justice colleagues ‘to see if there might be any options we can pursue here.’” The inquiry findings also claimed that: (a) the letter was “not authorized or approved by the [NSBA] Board of Directors or the Executive Committee,” and (b) “no one on the Board of Directors, other than the four officers of the NSBA, reviewed the draft” before it was sent to President Biden.

Following the NSBA’s May 20, 2022 admission of collusion, House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Judiciary ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Oversight and Reform ranking member Rep. James Comer (R-KY), and Education and Labor ranking member Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) released a joint statement saying: “This report confirms that the Biden administration colluded with members of the NSBA to abuse the counterterrorism authorities of the federal government and investigate America’s parents. This entire episode remains an insult to parents. … Those who coordinated these unprecedented attacks on our families must be held accountable.”

The president of Parents Defending Education, Nicole Neily, said in a statement: “As a result of the NSBA’s internal investigation, the American people now know that Biden Administration officials did indeed work with NSBA on the since-retracted letter requesting federal intervention in school board issues. It is inexcusable that a senior White House advisor would have the audacity to collaborate on a public request to use the Patriot Act against families; this is, quite literally, a betrayal of trust by the highest levels of government.”

On March 21, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim report on their investigation into the FBI’s alleged targeting of parents who had been speaking out at school board meetings. On March 22, 2023, conservative columnist Katie Pavlich wrote:

“[This] new report … shows extensive collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Board Association. The partnership came as the group drafted a letter calling on the Department of Justice to classify parents as domestic terrorists. The letter also asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the Patriot Act, implemented after 9/11, to go after parents expressing criticism over school lockdowns, critical race theory and inappropriate sexual content in the classroom. […] The report, which is interim as the Committee continues to investigate, gives a detailed timeline of the how the NSBA worked with DOJ, the Department of Education and the White House to push for federal law enforcement investigations into parents.”

Also according to the March 23 report, there had been “no legitimate basis” for Garland’s October 2021 memorandum directing federal law enforcement to begin working with their local counterparts to investigate what they termed “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators.” Some key excerpts from the report included the following:

  • “Although the Biden Administration declined to cooperate with this oversight in the 117th Congress, whistleblower disclosures and a report commissioned by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) shed some light on how the Biden Administration colluded with the NSBA to create a justification to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources against parents.”
  • “It is apparent that the Biden Administration misused federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources for political purposes.”
  • “This weaponization of law-enforcement powers against American parents exercising their First Amendment rights is dangerous. The Justice Department subjected moms and dads to the opening of an FBI investigation about them, the establishment of an FBI case file that includes their political views, and the application of a ‘threat tag’ to their names as a direct result of their exercise of their fundamental constitutional right to speak and advocate for their children.”
  • “Internal Executive Branch documents indicate that the Biden Administration’s use of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources is an example of government weaponization against American parents. If the Justice Department performed any due diligence prior to the issuance of the Attorney General’s memorandum, it would have understood clearly and forcefully that federal intervention was unwarranted. Because that due diligence did not occur—and the Administration acted out of political motivations rather than for law-enforcement reasons—parents around the country had FBI ‘assessments’ opened into them.”
  • “The NSBA collaborated with the Biden White House to develop the language of the NSBA’s September 29, 2021 letter to President Biden urging the use of federal law enforcement and counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act, against parents. The NSBA shared the draft language of its letter with the White House, which apparently raised no concerns with the reference to counterterrorism tools or the inclusion of the Patriot Act in the letter. Five days after the NSBA letter to President Biden, on October 4, Attorney General Garland issued a memorandum that inserted federal law enforcement into local school board meetings. Attorney General Garland established a task force—including the [Justice] Department’s National Security Division, with responsibility for enforcing federal counterterrorism statutes—to examine school board-related threats and highlighted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to serve as a snitch-line for tips about parents at school board meetings.”

Garland’s Ties to Mark Zuckerberg-Supported Education Consultancy

Garland’s memo clamping down on parents who objected to the teaching of critical race theory in public school classrooms, sparked additional controversy when it was reported, on October 6, 2021, that Garland’s son-in-law was Xan Tanner, co-founder of Panorama Education, a Boston-based education company that: (a) earns many millions of dollars annually by collecting social and emotional data from K-12 students; (b) is funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; and (c) promotes critical race theory under the deceptive banners of “social and emotional learning” and “culturally responsive training.”

Asra Nomani, the vice president of investigations and strategy of Parents Defending Education, tweeted the following about Garland’s ties to Panorama: “Merrick Garland has declared a war on parents. His daughter is married to the cofounder of @PanoramaEd which is under fire for its multimillion contracts with school boards. At @DefendingEd, parents sent us tips. We raised the alarm. Now Garland is trying to silence parents.” “Panorama Education will profit from Garland’s outrageous silencing of parents who are challenging its data mining of K-12 students,” Nomani wrote on her organization’s website.

FBI Whistleblower Reveals That the Bureau Created a “Threat Tag” to Track Alleged Harassment of Education Officials

On November 16, 2021, Fox News reported that an October 20 internal email from the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions — as part of the agency’s implementation of Garland’s October 4 memo citing an increase in harassment of education officials — instructed agents to apply the threat tag “EDUOFFICIALS” to all probes of threats allegedly directed at school board officials, teachers and staff. “The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level, and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement partners at all levels,” said the email. It also instructed FBI agents to try to determine: (a) what may have been the motivation behind the criminal activity being investigated, and (b) whether that activity violated any federal laws.

Reacting to news of the FBI threat tags, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted on November 16: “Merrick Garland testified that the FBI wasn’t targeting parents. We now know the FBI is ‘tagging’ parents they consider threatening. The Attorney General has some explaining to do.” In a similar vein, Republican Senator Josh Hawley tweeted: “If this is accurate, parents are getting the domestic-terrorist treatment after all.”

Garland & DOJ Sue Texas Over Its Allegedly Racist Redistricting Practices

At a December 6, 2021 press conference, Garland and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta announced that the Department of Justice was suing the Republican-governed state of Texas regarding the electoral maps of Texas’ Congressional Districts, which had been recently redrawn following the 2020 national census. According to DOJ, the manner in which those Districts had been redrawn discriminated against black and Latino voters, thereby violating the Voting Rights Act. Asserting that this was “not the first time Texas has acted to minimize the voting rights of its minority citizens,” the DOJ complaint read: “Decade after decade Texas has enacted redistricting plans that violate the Voting Rights Act.” Neither Garland nor Gupta mentioned the fact that while Texas had gained two Electoral College seats as a result of its population growth since 2020, it was actually Democrats who were likely to benefit disproportionately from the redistricting. Specifically, the state had replaced 5 highly competitive Districts with 5 Democrat-leaning Districts in Congress, while also adding 2 Republican-leaning Districts.

Among Garland’s remarks at the press conference were the following:

“Today, the Justice Department has filed suit against the State of Texas for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. As the Supreme Court has observed, a core principle of our democracy is that ‘voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.’

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires that state voting laws – including laws that draw electoral maps – provide eligible voters with an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process and elect representatives of their choosing.

“The complaint we filed today alleges that Texas has violated Section 2 by creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.…

“As many of you know, in 2013, the Supreme Court effectively eliminated the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which had been the department’s best tool for protecting voting rights.

“Earlier this year, I noted that this redistricting cycle would be the first to proceed since 1960 without the protection of preclearance. But I also said that the department would use all available authorities and resources to continue protecting the right to vote.

“In September, the department published guidance based on decades of precedent explaining that Section 2 prohibits ‘vote dilution.’ Vote dilution occurs when an electoral practice minimizes or cancels out the voting strength of members of a racial group or language minority group.

“When we issued that guidance, I noted that discriminatory redistricting schemes are illegal and that the department would ‘assess jurisdictions’ compliance with those laws during this redistricting cycle.’ …

“Last month, we filed a separate lawsuit against the State of Texas, alleging that Texas Senate Bill 1 improperly restricts the assistance voters who have a disability or who are unable to read or write can receive in the voting booth.

“Last week, we filed a statement of interest in Arizona litigation to explain that private plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that certain new voting laws in that state were passed with a discriminatory purpose.

“We also filed a statement of interest in Florida litigation explaining, among other things, that private parties can bring claims to enforce the Voting Rights Act. In all these matters, we have carefully assessed the facts and the law before taking action….

“Before I conclude, I want to again urge Congress to restore the Justice Department’s preclearance authority. Were that preclearance tool still in place, we would likely not be here today announcing this complaint.”

Neither  Garland nor Gupta made any mention of the redistricting practices of any Democrat-governed states.

While Title 42 Is Expected to be Terminated, Garland Refuses to Use the Word “Crisis” to Describe the Border Situation

As of April 2022, the Biden administration was openly indicating that it planned to terminate Title 42, a Trump-era policy requiring the swift deportation of illegal migrants who were deemed to be public health risks in light of the COVID-19 epidemic — without allowing them an opportunity to apply for asylum. When Garland was asked, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 26, what might happen if and when Title 42 were in fact to be lifted, he replied: “I think all intelligence suggests that there will be a large increase [of migrants entering the U.S. illegally at] the border.” Nevertheless, Garland claimed that the Justice Department’s “only role” vis-à-vis Title 42 was to determine whether the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control’s) recommended repeal of the policy “would be lawful.” And the DOJ had indeed concluded, said Garland, that the CDC order “was” lawful.

During the same Senate hearing, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked Garland, “When it comes to drugs coming into the United States from the southern border, in the last year, has that problem gotten better or worse?” Garland answered: “I don’t know what the numbers are. I mean, it is obviously the case that the — the — the transportation of fentanyl particularly has increased. Fentanyl is much easier — it’s much more compact, much smaller, goes a longer way. The smugglers, particularly in the trucks, have developed ways to hide it even from our x-rays. So that problem of fentanyl crossing the border — border has definitely increased in a way that makes all of us very worried.”

Graham also asked Garland if he thought that the border was “in a state of crisis.” In his reply, the attorney General avoided using the word “crisis”: “I think as you rightly pointed out, there’s going to be a lot of — intelligence suggests there’ll be a lot of people — a lot more people migrating at the border.”

Garland Rules That “Mental Illness” Can Be Used As a Mitigating Factor in Criminal Deportation Cases

In his May 9, 2022 ruling in a case known as the Matter of B-Z-R, Garland stated that immigration judges, when considering the asylum claims of people who have been convicted of “particularly serious crimes,” would now be permitted to take into account the mental health of the asylum seekers when determining whether or not their continued presence in the United States might pose a danger to the public. The B-Z-R case involved a Mexican national with a criminal record who, after being convicted of burglary in New Jersey, claimed that if he were to be deported back to his home country, he would face persecution because of his sexual preference as well as unspecified mental disorders.

In its brief on the matter, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) argued:

“An alien is ineligible for relief when convicted of a particularly serious crime. A crime is defined by its elements. Thus, the fact that an alien was convicted of a crime with elements that make it particularly serious—not the mental health of the alien—alone determines whether that alien was convicted of a particularly serious crime.

“To the extent mental health bears on whether the elements that constitute a particularly serious crime have been met, it has already been considered, according to law, by the trier of fact when considering whether the defendant had the mental state required for conviction. Any other mental health condition is thus irrelevant to determining whether an alien has been convicted of a particularly serious crime.

“The main policy reason for the law’s denial of immigration relief to aliens who have committed particularly serious crimes is that their criminal actions, as demonstrated by their conviction in a court of law of a particularly serious crime, make them a danger to the community. Considering an alien’s purportedly extenuating mental illness does not serve this policy goal. Aliens with mental illnesses that drive them to commit particularly serious crimes present a danger to the community just as great as—and perhaps greater than—aliens who commit the same crimes without being motivated by mental illness.”

As IRLI executive director and general counsel Dale Wlcox wrote in Breitbart.com on May 17, 2022:

“It is widely known that immigration lawyers will coach their illegal alien clients to say the ‘magic words’ that will allow them to enter the United States. Specifically, they are told to tell immigration agents that they are fearful to return to their home country for fear of persecution. As a result of Garland’s decision, criminal aliens facing deportation will be instructed to feign mental illness as a way to delay or prevent removal.”

Garland Is Silent About Leftist Attacks on Churches & Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft of a 5-4 majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Leftists nationwide reacted with outrage over the decision. Their anger manifested itself in various ways during the ensuing weeks, including more than 50 attacks  on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers perpetrated by an organization called Jane’s Revenge. Garland, however, was silent regarding those attacks.

On June 16, 2022, Republican Senator Tom Cotton: (a) said that Garland should resign because of his inaction on the matter, and (b) called on the DOJ to investigate Jane’s Revenge as a “domestic terrorist organization.” “Houses of worship and pro-life pregnancy centers are under attack,” Cotton wrote in a letter to Garland. “The Family Research Council has compiled a list of more than 50 attacks against churches, pro-life pregnancy centers, and other pro-life groups in the past few weeks. A left-wing extremist group called ‘Jane’s Revenge’ has taken credit for many of these attacks, including firebombings and grotesque acts of vandalism.” Cotton also noted how the same organization “has now issued a letter declaring ‘open season’ on all so-called ‘anti-choice’ groups, and calls for terrorist attacks against these groups by anyone ‘with the urge to paint, to burn, to cut, [or] to jam.” “What is the Department of Justice doing to protect Americans from these violent attacks?” wrote Cotton. “At a minimum, you should bring federal charges3 against the perpetrators, where appropriate, and investigate ‘Jane’s Revenge’ as a domestic terrorist organization. If you are unwilling to protect Americans from these attacks, you should resign-although, in my opinion, you should resign in any case.”

Instructing U.S. Marshals Not to Arrest Pro-Abortion Activists Protesting Outside the Homes of Conservative SCOTUS Justices

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. “No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” said Politico. Whereas Roe had guaranteed federal constitutional protections for abortion rights, the new ruling would return responsibility for those rights to each individual state. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in his opinion, adding: “We hold that Roe and Casey [a 1992 decision that largely reaffirmed the rights set forth in Roe] must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

In response to the Court’s decision, leftist mobs gathered to protest menacingly outside the homes of some of the Supreme Court Justices who had voted to overturn Roe. Thanks to policy set by Garland and the DOJ, however, those protesters were largely immune from arrest or criminal prosecution for their actions. As the New York Post reported on March 29, 2023:

“US Marshals assigned to protect Supreme Court justices’ homes following the reversal of Roe v. Wade last year were directed ‘not’ to arrest protesters ‘unless absolutely necessary,’ according to newly revealed documents.

“Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) unveiled a series of training slides used to prepare Marshals for their assignments as she grilled Attorney General Merrick Garland at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing [March 28]. The slides instructed the Marshals to ‘avoid​, unless absolutely necessary,​ any criminal enforcement​’​ ​involving protesters, and [told them] that ‘making arrests and initiating prosecutions was not the goal’ of their being stationed outside the residences of the court’s six conservative jurists. Britt noted that the word ‘not’ in the latter slide was italicized and underlined for emphasis.

“Another slide directed Marshals not to ‘engage [in] protest-related enforcement’ and to allow the protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights except to protect the justices and their families. Britt said the slides were obtained from a Justice Department whistleblower who objected to Garland’s March 1 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. […]

“[A]nother slide cited by Britt directed Marshals to clear any ‘enforcement action’ with the local US Attorney’s Office ‘in advance’ and warned: ‘It is counter-productive to make [probable cause] arrests on cases that the USAO will not charge and prosecute.’

“’Were you, at any point before your testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee, aware of these training materials or the fact that the Marshals had been heavily discouraged from making arrests…?’ Britt asked Garland. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen the slide deck,’ the AG responded.”

DOJ Sues Arizona over Voter Citizenship Requirement

Garland objected strongly to a March 2022 Arizona bill — signed into law by Republican Governor Doug Ducey — requiring people to show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before they could vote in a presidential election or vote by mail in any federal election. The law was slated to take effect at the start of 2023.

On July 5, 2022, Garland’s DOJ sued to block the enactment of the Arizona statute. According to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, the statute’s “onerous documentary proof of citizenship requirement” constituted a “textbook violation” of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which required all states to accept a federal voter-registration form that asked voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they were citizens, but did not require them to show documented proof of their citizenship. “For nearly three decades, the National Voter Registration Act has helped to move states in the right direction by eliminating unnecessary requirements that have historically made it harder for eligible voters to access the registration rolls,” Clarke stated in a press release. “Arizona has passed a law that turns the clock back on progress by imposing unlawful and unnecessary requirements that would block eligible voters from the registration rolls for certain federal elections. The Justice Department will continue to use every available tool to protect all Americans’ right to vote and to ensure that their voices are heard.”

In response to the lawsuit, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told Fox News:  “In addition to free rooms and transportation for those illegally entering our country, the DOJ now wants to give them a chance to vote.”

The New York Post, meanwhile, reported the following about the DOJ’s lawsuit against Arizona: “The DOJ argued the new [Arizona] law ignored a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that shot down an earlier attempt in 2005 by Arizona to impose similar documentary proof of citizenship on residents that want to vote in federal elections. The DOJ also argued the [Arizona] law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it mandates election officials to reject voter registration forms that have minor errors.”

“It is the fourth time the [D]epartment [of Justice] under Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has challenged a state’s voting law,” noted The New York Times.

Garland Orders FBI Raid on Donald Trump’s Florida Home

Early in the morning on August 8, 2022, the FBI dispatched approximately 30 agents to carry out a raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Such an action was unprecedented in American history. The agents searched Trump’s home for several hours, during which time they opened a safe and gathered numerous paper documents that they subsequently removed from the premises. While the Justice Department and FBI initially stayed silent vis-a-vis the purpose of the investigation, Eric Trump, the former president’s son, told Fox News that the raid was linked to some documents that the president had allegedly taken with him when he left the White House at the end of his term in January 2021.

That evening, Donald Trump issued a written statement that said:

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.

“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.

“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.

“The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!
“Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House.
“I stood up to America’s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.”

In an August 11, 2022 press briefing,  Garland stated: “I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” Claiming that the Justice Department “does not take such a decision lightly,” the Attorney General added that “the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to” the raid. “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department, of our democracy.” added Garland. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing. All Americans are entitled to the even-handed application of the law, to due process of law, and to the presumption of innocence. Much of our work is by necessity conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations.”

On September 12, 2022, CNN.com reported:

“Top officials from Donald Trump’s political fundraising and former campaign operation are among dozens of people in the former President’s orbit who received grand jury subpoenas in recent days – as the Justice Department intensifies its criminal investigation into January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Among them are former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and Sean Dollman, who worked for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as chief financial officer, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. … Dan Scavino, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, also recently received a subpoena, according to a source familiar with the matter. … In total, more than 30 individuals with connections to Trump have received subpoenas in recent days…. The subpoenas seek documents and in some cases testimony before a grand jury in Washington, DC.  The flurry of subpoenas and other investigative activity came in the days just before the Justice Department began its standard preelection quiet period, a 60-day period before the midterm election during which the department generally seeks to avoid taking overt investigative action in politically sensitive probes to avoid the appearance of trying to affect the election.”

Others who received subpoenas included former NYC police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who had worked with Rudolph Giuliani to find evidence of voter fraud in the weeks after the 2020 election; Brian Jack, the last White House political director under Trump; and Amy Kremer, the chair of Women for America First, a pro-Trump organization.

FBI Raids the Home of Catholic Leader Mark Houck & Arrests Him

At about 7 a.m. on the morning of September 23, 2022, Garland’s FBI dispatched approximately 25-to-30 armed agents to raid the Kintnersville, Pennsylvania home of Mark Houck, the founder and co-president of The King’s Men — a pro-life Catholic ministry dedicated to helping men become better husbands, fathers, and leaders — and arrest him. “A SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door,” Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, told the Catholic News Agency a few hours later. “They said they were going to break in if he didn’t open it. And then they had about five guns pointed at my husband, myself, and basically at my kids,” added the mother of seven.

The raid was carried out in connection with federal assault charges stemming from an October 13, 2021 altercation in which Houck allegedly had “verbally confronted” and “forcefully shoved” a 72-year-old Planned Parenthood escort, who was a male, to the ground outside an abortion facility in Philadelphia. The indictment claimed that the excort had needed medical attention as a result of the incident, but Houck family spokesman Brian Middleton claimed that the man’s injury was minor, requiring only “a Bandaid on his finger.”

Houck, who regularly prayed the rosary outside the Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia, explained that the escort had started the altercation by verbally harassing Houck’s 12-year-old son, which prompted Houck to push the man away from the boy and cause the man to fall.

When both the city police and the local district attorney declined to file charges against Houck, the escort filed a private criminal complaint in Philadelphia municipal court. But the case was dismissed in July 2022 after the plaintiff had repeatedly failed to show up in court. Just days after that dismissal, Houck received a “target letter” from the U.S. Attorney’s Office informing him that he was the subject of a federal criminal probe. Through his lawyer at the time, Houck tried to contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss the matter, but he never received a response prior to the September 23, 2022 raid of his home.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a peress release that Houck was being charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (commonly known as the FACE Act), which, according to the DOJ, “prohibits violent, threatening, damaging and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office further stated that if Houck were to be convicted, he could be sentenced to as much as 11 years in prison, plus 3 years of supervised release and a fine of up to $350,000.

Senator Josh Hawley Grills Garland about the Mark Houck Case & the DOJ’s Anti-Catholic Bias

During a March 1, 2023 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri grilled Garland over the aforementioned September 2022 FBI raid on the home of Christian activist Mark Houck, and asked Garland whether the DOJ had an “anti-Catholic bias.” “Our department protects all religions, all ideologies,” the AG replied. “It does not have any bias against any religion of any kind.”

Portraying the DOJ as an agency that was quick to expend resources and intelligence to target Catholics while “turning a blind eye” to the epidemic of street crime that was overrunning U.S. cities from coast to coast, Hawley then proceeded to cite the FBI’s armed and dramatic raid of Houck’s family home. “Why did the FBI do this?” Hawley asked Garland. “Why did you send 20-30 SWAT-style agents, SWAT-style team to this guy’s house when everybody else had declined to prosecute and he offered to turn himself in?” Garland, in response, said that FBI agents on the ground had made the decision regarding their method of engagement with Houck.

Hawley countered by asking if the approach that those agents had selected was “objectively necessary” based on established protocol, Garland dodged the question and again asserted that the decision had been made made by FBI agents on the ground. When Hawley then asked Garland if he was “abdicating responsibility,” Garland said no. “Then give me the answer,” Hawley retorted. “Do you think, in your opinion, you are the attorney general of the United States. You are in charge of the Justice Department and yes, sir, you are responsible. So give me an answer.”

According to a Fox News report:

The two [then] went back and forth for over a minute. Hawley repeatedly pushed for an answer from Garland on whether he thought the FBI raid was “reasonable,” but Garland punted the question and merely suggested the facts were not as Hawley described.

“What, that the children weren’t there? That there weren’t long guns there? That there weren’t agents? What do you dispute? What’s the factual premise that you dispute?” Hawley said, clearly flustered.

Garland finally stated that the FBI disputed Hawley’s description of how many agents were at the scene and what their roles were.

“You used an unbelievable show of force with guns that I just note liberals usually decry. We’re supposed to hate long guns and assault-style weapons. You’re happy to deploy them against Catholics and innocent children. Happy to,” Hawley later said. “And then you haul them into court and a jury acquits him in one hour. I suggest to you that is a disgraceful performance by your Justice Department and a disgraceful use of resources.”

After the foregoing exchange, Hawley referenced a January 23 memorandum from the FBI field office in Richmond, Virginia, that called for “the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development against traditionalist Catholics.” “Attorney General, are you cultivating sources and spies in Latin mass parishes and other Catholic parishes across the country?” Hawley asked.

“The Justice Department does not do that and does not do investigations based on religion,” Garland replied. “I saw the document you sent. It’s appalling. It’s appalling. I’m in complete agreement with you. I understand that the FBI has withdrawn it and is looking into how this could ever have happened.”

When Hawley then asked how many informants the FBI had placed inside Catholic churches nationwide, Garland said, “I don’t know, and I don’t believe we have any informants aimed at Catholic churches. We have a rule against investigations based on First Amendment activity.” The AG later said, “I don’t know specifically” how many FBI sources were embedded in Catholic churches.

Garland’s Failure to Prosecute Attackers of Pro-Life & Catholic Facilities

During a March 1, 2023 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah denounced Garland for having failed to prosecute the perpetrators of the numerous attacks on pro-life-group facilities and Catholic churches which had been reported during the preceding 12 months. “DOJ has announced charges against 34 individuals for blocking access to or vandalizing abortion clinics,” said Hawley, while noting that “there have been over 81 reported attacks on pregnancy centers and only two individuals have been charged.” “How do you explain this disparity by reference to anything other than politicization of what’s happening?” the senator asked. In response, Garland claimed that pro-life activists generally committed their transgressions against abortion clinics “during the daylight [when] seeing the person doing it is quite easy.” By contrast, said the AG: “Those who are attacking the pregnancy resource centers, which is a horrid thing to do, are doing this at night, in the dark…. These people who are doing it are clever and are doing it in secret. I am convinced that the FBI is trying to find them with urgency.”

During that same Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas accused Garland of having politicized the DOJ by prosecuting pro-life conservative organizations much more aggressively than leftwing groups. Citing the mass protests which had been staged outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices (like Brett Kavanaugh) after the media had leaked news of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022,[1] Cruz emphasized that the AG had not brought even “a single case against any of these protesters.”

 

 

 

Garland May Have Perjured Himself before Congress When He Vowed Not to Politicize DOJ Investigation into Hunter Biden’s Crimes

On June 23, 2023, NationalReview.com reported:

“If confirmed, explosive whistleblower testimony by a senior Internal Revenue Service agent released by a House committee yesterday adds to evidence that President Biden was up to his neck in his family’s lucrative business of cashing in on his political influence. Given that this business involves millions of dollars in suspiciously structured payments to Biden family accounts from corrupt and anti-American regimes, prominently including the Chinese Communist Party, national security demands that Congress prioritize this investigation.

“Of equally immediate concern, particularly after the sweetheart plea bargain the Biden Justice Department just announced it is giving the president’s son, Hunter Biden, to dispose of his serious tax and firearms crimes, someone in that investigation is lying. Specifically, if the testimony IRS supervisory agent Gary A. Shapley Jr. has provided to the House Ways and Means Committee is true, then the testimony Attorney General Merrick Garland provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee was false.

“Let’s start with President Biden’s involvement in the family business. Despite what Shapley portrays as the Justice Department’s zealous efforts to cut investigators off from damning evidence, they did manage to obtain a threatening WhatsApp message that Hunter Biden sent on July 30, 2017, to Henry Zhao — who investigators suspect is a Chinese Communist Party official and an executive of a business that, committee investigators say, had paid Hunter $100,000. Hunter wrote: ‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.’

“Obviously, it is imperative that there be a diligent investigation to determine what this call was about. The fact that Hunter was invoking his powerful father is cause for concern on its face, but the FBI and IRS should already have confirmed whether the now-president was sitting beside his extortion-minded son.

“Yet, if Shapley and other whistleblowers are right, diligent investigation is exactly what federal agents have been prevented from doing.

“Shapley testified about extensive Justice Department interference. The Biden investigation started nearly five years ago, in November 2018. By late the following year, the FBI had not only learned of and obtained the laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned in a computer-repair shop; the bureau had confirmed that the data belonged to Hunter Biden and alerted the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes.

“Yet, as our Andrew C. McCarthy has recounted (here and here), Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) has reported that senior FBI officials colluded with congressional Democrats in 2020 to portray the substantial evidence of financial chicanery amassed by Senators Grassley and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) as Russian disinformation; and, according to tech executives, senior FBI officials admonished them that social-media companies would be abetting Russian interference in the presidential election if they allowed late-breaking derogatory information to be disseminated on their platforms. This led directly to the suppression of the New York Post’s reporting on the incriminating laptop data in October 2020 (months after the FBI had established the data’s authenticity); and to the Biden campaign’s collaboration with former national-security officials to gin up a letter falsely suggesting that the laptop reporting was a Russian intelligence operation — a letter that then-candidate Biden used as cover when then-president Trump raised the laptop in the final debate shortly before Election Day.

“In the years leading up to the 2020 election, the Biden probe was assigned to Delaware U.S. attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee whose confirmation in the president’s home state was supported by its Democratic senators (Biden allies Tom Carper and Chris Coons). Following the transition to a new administration, Weiss was retained to continue running the investigation by the Biden Justice Department, even though other Trump-appointed district U.S. attorneys were fired. Garland refused to appoint a special counsel despite the obvious conflict of interest in the Biden Justice Department’s investigation of the president’s son (and, more broadly, the Biden family influence-peddling business). The attorney general’s rationale was that the case was in the capable hands of a Trump appointee and vowed that there would be no political interference.

“We’ve always been skeptical about that commitment. Because the Hunter Biden matter has been categorized as a tax investigation, Justice Department rules call for involvement and sign-off by Tax Division at Main Justice, which is run by Biden appointees. Moreover, if the venue for any charges lay outside Delaware, Weiss would need permission from the Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in those federal districts to file them. Tax charges, for example, must be filed where the taxpayer’s return is filed or prepared, or where he resides. In Hunter Biden’s case, that would be the District of Columbia or the Central District of California.

“Nevertheless, Garland has repeatedly testified, most recently in questioning by Senator Grassley just three months ago, that Weiss had been instructed that he would not be interfered with, that he would not be blocked by any other district U.S. attorney, and that Garland would personally grant him any authority he needed to bring cases in any district Weiss believed was necessary. (See here, beginning at the 58-minute mark, or here.)

“Shapley recounts, however, that throughout 2020, the IRS was thwarted in its efforts to conduct a search of Hunter Biden’s residences, interviews with his business associates, and basic follow-up of investigative leads. For the most part, he says, the strictures and slow-walking were decreed by a career prosecutor in Weiss’s office, assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf. She claimed that the Justice Department needed to be careful of the ‘optics’ of investigating the son of the then-Democratic nominee because DOJ was under ‘fire’ that was ‘self-inflicted,’ requiring that it ‘repair’ its ‘reputation’ — apparent allusions to the dismal DOJ/FBI performance in the 2016 Clinton-email and Russiagate probes.

“The whistleblower agent maintains that Wolf and other Justice Department lawyers not only vetoed searches for which they acknowledged there was probable cause, but that Wolf also tipped off one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers about a storage locker to which Biden had transferred documents from his Washington business office.

“Furthermore, according to the whistleblower, when agents were planning to interview Biden associate Rob Walker about a now-notorious email, which related that Hunter was to hold a 10 percent stake ‘for the big guy’ in an anticipated multimillion-dollar deal with Chinese government–connected CEFC, Wolf is said to have directed them not to ask questions about President Biden. According to Shapley, over objections from both FBI and IRS agents, Wolf insisted that there was ‘no specific criminality to that line of questioning,’ and therefore they were not to ask about ‘the big guy’ or ‘dad.’

“As the investigation continued under the Biden Justice Department, Shapley recounts that agents were not given access to the Biden laptop evidence and were prevented by Wolf and the Tax Division from conducting interviews with essential witnesses. Eventually, the Justice Department had the entire IRS team removed from the probe over its complaints about the preferential treatment accorded the president’s son. Shapley says DOJ has also developed a sudden interest in collecting years of his email correspondence documenting investigative irregularities.

“Most disturbing, despite Garland’s sworn commitments to the contrary, Weiss is said to have acknowledged to the agents that when he pushed in 2022 to file tax-evasion charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, D.C., and the Central District of California, he was rebuffed by Matthew Graves and Martin Estrada, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in those districts. Weiss confessed at an October 7, 2022, meeting, ‘I’m not the deciding official on whether charges are filed.’ He elaborated that the Justice Department had turned him down flat when he asked for special-counsel authority so he could file charges over the objections of Biden’s appointees — exactly the opposite of what Garland promised would happen.

“In the course of this dithering, the statute of limitations lapsed on key charges. Investigators had gathered proof that Hunter Biden failed to register as a foreign agent for Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian energy company that put him on its board while his father was running point on Obama administration Ukraine policy. In addition, in 2014 and 2015, he evaded taxes on his lavish Burisma income. Such charges should have been the backbone of any tax and corruption prosecution against Biden; now they are time-barred.

“Garland vowed that the Biden investigation would proceed independently. That investigation has implicated the president in the shady business dealings of his son, who appears to have committed serious crimes. Now, the investigating agents claim the probe has been sabotaged by Garland’s department — the same Biden DOJ that just gave away the store in the plea bargain.”

Garland Turns the DOJ into Biden Defense Team

On August 7, 2023, conservative columnist Deroy Murdock published a powerful piece documenting how Garland’s DOJ had consistently filed criminal charges against former President Trump, immediately after bombshell revelations about massive corruption in which Joe Biden and his son Hunter had engaged. Wrote Murdock:

“The Department of Justice should be honest and call itself Biden Campaign Headquarters. As a fearsome whiff of East Germany wafts through its windows, this cabinet agency persecutes Donald J. Trump, the president’s chief political rival, and keeps the heat off of the Bidens. […]

“Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment du jour, unveiled Tuesday [August 1], aims to jail Trump for using First Amendment-protected free speech to challenge the validity of the 2020 election. Never mind that Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, and countless other Democrats challenged the validity of the 2016 election. They called Trump illegitimate and, for three years, screamed the knowingly false claim that he won only with Vladimir Putin’s help.

“When will Smith indict these Democrats?

“Never.

“Smith hopes to lock up Trump for a ‘fake electors scheme,’ even though Congressional Democrats opposed GOP Electoral College slates and urged their replacement with alternate Democrat electors from contested states in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. They, like Republicans, had every right to do so. […]

“When will Smith indict these Democrats?

“Never.

“Smith also is making it criminal to offer and accept legal advice with which the DOJ disagrees. American justice will implode if lawyers cannot counsel clients without fearing federal prosecution if the attorney general dislikes their arguments. […]

“Smith’s 45-page indictment deserves to be entombed beneath the remnants of the Berlin Wall.

“Smith’s charges arrived, most conveniently, one day after Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer, spoke with the House Oversight Committee. This follows a familiar pattern: When the Bidens feel the heat, the DOJ immediately cools those flames with fresh accusations against Trump.

“On June 7, new documents indicated that Ukrainian gas company Burisma paid Joe and Hunter $5 million each. On June 8, the DOJ indicted Trump in the Mar-a-Lago secret documents matter.

“On July 26, Hunter’s plea agreement unraveled. On July 27, Smith unveiled ‘superseding’ Mar-a-Lago charges.

“On July 31, Archer’s testimony torched the Bidens. On August 1, Smith slapped Trump with January 6-related accusations.

“Nonetheless, the Bidens appear to occupy a ring of fire.

  • “On July 29, the Department of Obstruction of Justice urged a federal judge to speed Archer’s imprisonment (on unrelated charges) two days before his Capitol Hill testimony. Outrage erupted, and the DOJ retreated.
  • “These crooks instructed the IRS on May 15 to stop its 13-man probe of Hunter’s taxes. The DOJ’s scrutiny of Hunter’s tax shenanigans was so glacial that statutes of limitations lapsed on his apparent tax evasion in 2014 and ’15.
  • “According to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, his agency hoped to search Hunter’s northern Virginia storage unit in December 2020. However, Shapley told House investigators that DOJ prosecutor Lesley Wolf ‘simply reached out to Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told him about the storage unit, once again ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed.’
  • “Despite Joe Biden’s laughable 2019 lies that he had ‘never spoken‘ about and ‘never discussed’ his son’s and other relatives’ ‘overseas business dealings’ and ‘businesses,’ Archer testified that Hunter rang his father and put him on speaker phone during some 20 meetings with clients and prospects. […] The point was that Hunter could get the then-vice president of the United States to answer his calls within three rings. Accessing ‘the Biden brand’ was worth at least $10 million, which clients gladly pumped into the family’s 20-plus shell companies.
  • “According to House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R – Kentucky), six different banks have filed a staggering 170 suspicious-activity reports on the Bidens’ transactions.
  • “Joe Biden’s claimed ignorance about Hunter’s business affairs did not stop him from signing a January 20, 2011 letter on vice presidential stationery. Addressed to Devon Archer, it began: ‘Dear Devin [sic]. I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday. I was having trouble getting away from hosting President Hu’ of China, Joe Biden wrote. ‘I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter. I hope you enjoyed lunch. Thanks for coming.’  Joe added: ‘P.S. Happy you guys are together” […] Hunter and Archer then were partners in the Rosemont Seneca investment company.
  • “Hunter told Archer to buy a burner phone on April 12, 2014, three days before Archer met then-Veep Biden at the White House.
  • “Hunter’s Laptop from Hell employed at least 16 different message applications, some highly encrypted and even military grade.
  • “‘Your question – why does Super Chair love me so much? is easily answered,’ Hunter e-mailed Archer in 2011 about Chinese tycoon Che Feng. ‘It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my last name (and I bring along very handsome Aryan godlike men wherever I go).’

“Until it imploded last week, the DOJ responded to all of this, and more, with a plea agreement for Hunter that resembled a day-spa visit. As the saying goes, watching Congress make laws is uglier than a sausage factory. But the average kielbasa plant is a Michelin-starred restaurant compared to the Upton Sinclair-grade judicial slaughterhouse that Merrick Garland, Joe Biden’s de facto campaign manager, now operates where the Department of Justice once stood.”

“The Right to Vote Is Still Under Attack”

On March 3, 2024, Garland delivered some remarks to a crowd at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, during an event commemorating the famous Bloody Sunday” of 1965. Among other things, he characterized election-integrity measures like Voter ID requirements and the limitation of mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes, as racially motivated assaults on people’s right to vote. Some excerpts:

“There are many things that are open to debate in America. One thing that must not be open for debate is the right of all eligible citizens to vote and to have their vote counted. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all others flow. It is a right that members of this community bled for.

“And yet, progress in protecting the right to vote — especially for Black Americans — has never been steady. Indeed, throughout our country’s history — before Bloody Sunday, and after — the right to vote in America has been under attack.

“It was under attack in the wake of the Civil War and amidst Reconstruction, when white supremacists used violence and threats of violence to stop Black Americans from exercising their right to vote.

“It was at that time that the Department of Justice was founded, with the principal purpose of protecting the rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And in those first years the Justice Department was founded, it by successfully prosecuting more than a thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan.

“But the right to vote was still under attack nearly a century later, when Black residents trying to register to vote in this county, and in jurisdictions across the country, were required to take nearly impossible tests that were designed to ensure that they fail.

“And the right to vote was under attack on Sunday, March 7, 1965, when civil rights activists set out to march from Selma to Montgomery and were met with horrific violence. The marchers’ courage helped usher into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave the Justice Department important authorities to protect the right to vote. Because of that law, between 1965 and 2006, the Justice Department was able to block more than 1,200 restrictive voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of suppressing the vote.

“But as you well know, court decisions in recent years have drastically weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act that marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge bled for 59 years ago. And since those decisions, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative measures that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice. Those measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities; and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators. Such measures threaten the foundation of our system of government….

“The right to vote is still under attack. And that is why the Justice Department is fighting back. That is why, one of the first things I did as Attorney General was to double the number of lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division.

“That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.

“That is why we are working to block the adoption of discriminatory redistricting plans that dilute the vote of Black voters and other voters of color….

“We are defending the ability of private individuals — not just the government — to bring lawsuits under the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“We are joining with community groups and civil rights organizations across the country by intervening in cases to defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition on voter intimidation. And to defend the Act’s bar against voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or color.

“There is so much more to do.

“Yet, these are not the only threats our democracy is facing. Today, threats to the right to vote have expanded to target not just the voters themselves, but the citizens we rely on to fairly administer voting. Not just elected officials, not just paid administrators, but also the local volunteers who ensure that voting is available in every precinct. That is why I launched the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force to combat threats against election workers. That is why we are aggressively investigating and prosecuting those who threaten election workers with violence….”

Footnotes:


  1. Federal law forbids “interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer” as well as demonstrations in or near a court building or residence “occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness or court officer.”

Additional Resources:


Green Justice: A Glimpse at How Obama’s SCOTUS Pick Would Likely Rule on EPA Cases on the High Court
By Fred Lucas
March 17, 2016

Obama Nominates Stealth Leftist for the Supreme Court
By Joseph Klein
March 17, 2016

The Potential Nomination of Merrick Garland
By Tom Goldstein
April 26, 2010

Obama Scotus Pick Is Anti-gun Zealot
By Daniel John Sobieski
March 17, 2016

The Biden Justice Department’s Lawless Threat against American Parents
By Andrew C. McCarthy
October 5, 2021

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