Tag Archives: Attorney General Merrick Garland

Lying To Congress Is Only A Problem If You Are A Republican

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Yesterday The Post Millennial posted an article yesterday that indicates Attorney General Merrick Garland lied to Congress when asked about using the Department of Justice Counterterrorism Division to investigate parents who were unhappy with the curriculum in their local schools.

The article reports:

In a letter addressed to US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, Rep. Jim Jordan wrote that a whistleblower has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is using its Counterterrorism Division to investigate parents.

“Last month, during your testimony before the Judiciary Committee, you testified that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were not using federal counterterrorism tools to target concerned parents at local school board meetings,” Jordan’s letter began.

…”We are now in receipt of a protected disclosure from a Department whistleblower showing that the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division is compiling and categorizing threat assessments related to parents, including a document directing FBI personnel to use a specific ‘threat tag’ to track potential investigations,” the letter continues, calling into question the “accuracy and completeness of your sworn testimony.”

Jordan’s letter goes on to outline that during Garland’s Oct. 21 testimony, he stated that the Department and its components were not using counterterrorism statues and resources to target concerned parents, specifically stating that he could not “imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children.”

The letter states that they have received an FBI email from the whistleblower dated Oct. 20, the day before Garland’s testimony, sent “on behalf of” the FBI’s Assistant Director for the Counterterrorism.

…That document, which references Garland’s Oct. 4 directive to the FBI, reveals that the FBI created the threat tag “EDUOFFICIALS” with the purpose of tracking “instances of related threats.”

“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,” the document reads. “The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level and provide opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective management with law enforcement parters at all levels.”

“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.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes screenshots of the Whistleblower’s information.

The Impact Of Public Opinion

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Many parents of school children objected when they were called domestic terrorists because they had questions or disagreements with what their children were being taught in school. As parents began speaking out, other Americans became aware of the situation and also voiced their opinion. The actions of the parents and others have gotten results.

Today The Federalist reported the following:

The National School Boards Association has apologized for a letter that Attorney General Merrick Garland used to target parents as “domestic terrorists.”

“We regret and apologize for the letter,” the NSBA said in a memorandum sent to members on Friday. “To be clear, the safety of school board members, other public school officials and educators, and students is our top priority, and there remains important work to be done on this issue. However, there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

The original letter, publicly sent to Biden administration officials after the organization worked with the Biden administration to craft its language, asked the federal government to take action against parents and citizens who “threaten” or “intimidate” school board officials and education administrators. It said nothing of the reports of some school officials engaging in the same behavior against parents.

“NSBA believes immediate assistance is required to protect our students, school board members, and educators who are susceptible to acts of violence affecting interstate commerce because of threats to their districts, families, and personal safety,” the original letter read. “… As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

As many as 20 state school boards have since distanced themselves from the NSBA in backlash against the letter: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming.

Fourteen state school boards, including Pennsylvania’s, said they were not alerted before the NSBA sent the letter. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association voted unanimously last week to exit the NSBA.

The article concludes:

House Republicans grilled Garland on his decision to mobilize the FBI against parents.

“It concerns us that [your letter] was issued just five days after the National School Board Association sent a letter to President Biden which referred to concerned parents as the equivalent of ‘domestic terrorists and perpetrators of hate crimes,’” Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson said. “Given the timing of all this, your memo appears to have been motivated by politics more than any pressing law enforcement need. This is concerning to us and it’s worthy of investigation.”

“A snitch line on parents, started five days after a left-wing political organization asked for it,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said. “If that’s not political, I don’t know what is.”

This incident shows the power of Americans when they choose to speak up. All of us need to be ready to stand up against over-intrusive searches and threats from our government. It seems as if our law enforcement agencies on the national level have been politicized. The best protection for all of us is to make sure we elect local officials who respect and abide by the U.S. Constitution. Otherwise we will find ourselves living in a surveillance state.

Evidently Ethics Investigations Are Not Allowed In The Biden Administration

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The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the possible conflict of interest in the Attorney General Merrick Garland’s investigation of parents objecting to the actions of local school boards.

The article reports:

Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) questioned U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland about his clear conflict of interest today surrounding the Attorney General’s instructions for FBI agents to investigate parents who question school board curriculum. Merrick Garland’s daughter is married to the co-founder of the Critical Race Theory educational material being purchased by the school boards. The exact CRT material being directly challenged by the parents Garland has instructed the FBI to investigate.

In a clear conflict of interest Merrick Garland is using his office to protect the income and investments of his son-in-law’s business. However, when questioned about this conflict today, Merrick Garland says he will refuse to accept any ethical review of his conduct.

The article includes the following video:

The article concludes:

Conflict of interest much?

Yes, the Attorney General is instructing the FBI to investigate parents who might pose a financial threat to the business of his daughter’s husband.

Every government official should be expect regular ethics reviews of his conduct regardless of political party or position. The Attorney General is not above the law.

This Was Always The Next Step

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On October 2nd, I posted an article about the National School Boards Association’s claim that school board members are under threat from parents who oppose some of the garbage being taught in our classrooms. The actual truth is that the National School Boards Association and the local school boards would like very much for parents to sit down and shut up, and the parents are not cooperating. There have been very few, if any, threats. One of the few benefits of the school shutdowns of the past year was that parents got a closer look at what their children were being taught. A lot of parents didn’t like what they saw and are now speaking out against it. Because the Teacher’s Union and affiliated groups are major donators to the Democrat party, this revolt by parents must be stopped. Enter the Biden administration’s Justice Department.

Yesterday Red State reported the following:

The struggle of parents to prevent school boards from sanctioning racial discrimination and stereotyping and imposing profoundly stupid Wuhan virus mitigation measures, like masking elementary school kids, has led to school board meetings becoming something of a battleground in the culture wars. School board members and educrats do not like being challenged or held to account by the rubes who elected them, and so they are claiming the mantle of victimhood.

Yesterday, I posted about a letter written by the president of the National School Boards Association…yes, there is such a thing…demanding that Joe Biden use the full force of the federal government to stop parents from speaking out. This letter included a request that the provisions of the Patriot Act be invoked against parents to keep school boards safe from being offended; see National School Board Official Demands Biden Use Patriot Act Against Protesting Parents.

Even though White House spokescreature Jen Psaki was publicly ambivalent about the letter, it was evident that Biden would eventually come to the rescue of the educrats because he needed their support. That help arrived today.

The article includes the following:

Justice Department Addresses Violent Threats Against School Officials and Teachers

Citing an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools, today Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response by law enforcement.

“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” wrote Attorney General Garland. “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.”

According to the Attorney General’s memorandum, the Justice Department will launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel. Those efforts are expected to include the creation of a task force, consisting of representatives from the department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service and the Office of Justice Programs, to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes, and ways to assist state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.

Threats are not acceptable, but either is a crackdown against free speech, which is what this will eventually evolve into. Notice the words “where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.” Anything perceived to be a threat of violence (even though it may not be a federal crime) will come into play here. Is “I hope you get voted out of office” a threat of violence? Will it be considered one? This is a dangerous path.

 

Who Decided The Polices Involved?

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Yesterday Trending Politics posted an article about freshmen Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who is leading Republican efforts to find out why those involved in the events of January 6th are being treated so differently than those members of Antifa and Black Lives matter who were involved in the riots last summer.

The article reports:

A group of Republican lawmakers led by freshmen Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado are demanding that the Biden administration explain the alleged unequal treatment of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, many of whom have never spent a night in jail, and those who have been incarcerated for months following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

In a letter, Boebert and 10 other House Republicans asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to address “the apparent inconsistent application of the law with respect to rioters across the country,” according to the Washington Times.

“The foundation of our criminal justice system requires that all defendants are treated equally before the law, but the Biden regime is not living up to this solemn obligation,” said Boebert, in a statement.

The lawmakers say that prosecutors in Oregon have signed off on at least 12 “deferred resolution agreements in federal felony cases” resulting from clashes during last year’s protests in Portland, while some rioters from Jan. 6 are being held in solitary confinement.

“Reports are circulating that the Biden regime has held January 6th rioters in solitary confinement, while at the same time, they are letting BLM rioters that attacked federal buildings off with just a few hours of community service,” Boebert said.

The article concludes with a quote from a letter written by four Senate Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in June:

“DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish individuals who committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.,” said Tuesday’s letter from Boebert and the 10 other House members.

“Whether it is a mob breaking laws in D.C. or a mob in Portland or Minneapolis, the standard of justice should be the same in America,” they added.

The treatment of the people who entered the Capitol Building on January 6th is much more representative of a country ruled by a dictatorship than a free democratic republic.

The Question Of The Day

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The American Thinker posted an article today asking a really good question about the 2020 election. The questions is very simple – “What if the 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won?” There is no quick and obvious answer.

The article notes a few historical precedents and a few observations about our Constitution:

I. This we do know…

* With a strict constructionist view of the wording in the Constitution, the words are not there to “road map” how to fix possible presidential election fraud.

* The Constitution mentions nothing about the Electoral College re-convening. Historically, the Electoral College has never re-convened for a second time for a presidential certification.

…*  We do know that of the 4 key contested battleground “purple states” that were crucial, all had election irregularities election day, election night, and the following election morning.

…II.  So, what would happen if it became clear there was no election integrity in the four most important contested state cases?  What would happen?

*  Would the Supreme Court do absolutely nothing?  Would the Supreme Court say the Constitution is mute, and therefore they themselves have nothing they can do?  Would they say no federal law exists to right the wrong?  Would the Supreme Court remain impotent?

*  Would the Supreme Court place President Trump back in office and back into the White House?

*  Would Biden remain the president, nothing changes, and Biden serves out the remaining four years?  With Trump supporters seething but doing nothing?

*  Would Biden and his Attorney General Merrick Garland, after the Arizona audit proves fraud, stop “by any means necessary” any audits being conducted in any other states?  A complete stoppage of all future state audits.

*  Would Garland/Biden cite federal supremacy, federal civil rights laws, or federalize the state National Guards to make sure any remaining audits are stopped?

*  Is it possible that Biden and Kamala Harris would both be impeached out of office and Nancy Pelosi become President of the United States?   President Nancy Pelosi!  Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and is therefore third in line to the presidency.  The Constitution and federal law are clear on who is third in line: Speaker of the House.  President Pelosi!

*  Would President Trump admit that there is really nothing MAGA Nation can do, short of violence, and therefore simply just concentrate his efforts on the Republicans taking back the House and the Senate with Trump as their leader in 2022?  This is constitutional and legal but only works if there is not election theft again in 2022. 

III.  Four separate entities and groups are crucial to what might happen next if there is obvious election fraud and a stolen presidential election and the Constitution, federal courts, and federal law are mute on what happens next.

  *  The Supreme Court.  Even though it is obvious that the Supreme Court does not want to deal with the 2020 election, the Court might actually make tough decisions concerning the outcome.  Probably the big fear of the Court is that if they rule constitutionally against Biden, the progressives within the Deep State would just ignore the Court.  And the Court would be spectacularly neutered for all to see. A big fear.

  *  The military. What would the military do?  Especially what if the top brass goes one way, but the rank-in-file soldiers go the other way?  The generals appear to have already sold their soul to Biden.  So, it would surprise no one if the military generals stayed with Biden/Harris.  But what if the real soldiers themselves go the other way?

* The progressives. Considering what the progressives did, and allowed, and cheered for in the violent deadly riots last summer; we have a pretty good idea of how they would react. We saw the violence the progressives are willing to bring. We know how far the progressives would go if Biden were being removed by the Court.

* Trump supporters. Would they gear up for the 2022 off-year elections so that the Republicans under Trump’s leadership take both the House and Senate with filibuster-proof majorities? Would they wait passionately until the 2024 presidential election and support Trump? Or would they become more like the progressives and take matters into their own hands? Would they say enough is enough, and it “gets real,” really fast? Especially if the Supreme Court rules constitutionally for Trump, but the progressives say NO.

Conclusion. We just don’t know. We do not know what comes next. This is the situation America finds itself in when roughly half of the American people believe at the very least the election results to be very, very questionable; and then roughly half of the American people would not allow Biden/Harris to be removed from office no matter what the forensic audits might clearly show. The Constitution is mute. Federal law is silent. State laws are inconsistent. Emotions are very high. Compromise is unlikely at this point.

Frankly, I think the most rational solution is to make sure the mid-term election is an honest election, to make sure any election fraud in 2020 is widely reported, and to let the people vote the crooks who were involved out of office. Then a secure 2024 election would be able to undo some of the damage the Biden administration has done to America. However, I am extremely concerned that the American voters will never be made aware of the fraud that occurred.

 

Looking Behind The Curtain

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When Merrick Garland was appointed Attorney General, it seemed a bit odd. It was an obvious slap in the face to the Republicans who had not brought his nomination to the Supreme Court to the floor of the Senate, but evidently there is more to the story. As you read this, remember that a lot of what have been called conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the reason behind the appointment of Judge Garland. The article provides some insight into what is happening behind the scenes in the Biden administration.

The article quotes a Reuters report:

Democrats overcame Republican opposition on Monday as the U.S. Senate voted to confirm federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, seen as a possible future Supreme Court nominee for President Joe Biden, to an influential appellate court.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 53-44 to approve Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. All those in opposition were Republicans, with three voting with Democrats to approve the nomination.

Biden nominated Jackson, a Washington-based U.S. district judge, to the D.C. Circuit to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the bench. That appellate court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court in the past, including for current Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. (read more)

What we have here is the deep state in action.

The article at the Conservative Treehouse explains:

The vote was 53-47 [link here] Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham voted with Democrats to support KBJ to the circuit court. This Deep State manuever was transparently predictable. {Go Deep}  This was the real reason why Biden elevated Merrick Garland to AG, to get him out of the way for Ketanji Brown Jackson to work her way to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Obama would then have another tool for total control.

Remember the names of the Republicans who voted for this. They need to lose in primary elections as soon as possible.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse concludes:

We all know that Biden is an avatar for Obama’s third-term. Hence the plan by Team Obama (BLM) and James Clyburn (AME) to use a cognitively impaired tool to secure the 2020 club nomination. They then inserted Kamala Harris as the useful radical to manipulate for actual policy objectives.

Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never return to that time before when you did not see them. It’s all a conspiracy theory until it’s proven accurate, then it’s racist…

The Democrats don’t have to pack the Supreme Court–all they need to do is replace a few traditional liberals with some radicals.

 

 

Misplaced Priorities

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On Friday, PJ Media reported the following:

On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he would use the Department of Justice (DOJ) to target “new laws that make it harder to vote,” like the Georgia law President Joe Biden called “Jim Crow on steroids.” Garland falsely claimed that courts and intelligence agencies had “refuted” 2020 election integrity concerns, suggesting that the laws to restore election integrity are based on “disinformation” and even racism.

The article concludes:

The attorney general pledged that the DOJ would double the number of attorneys working on voting rights issues in the next 30 days. (Trump had left the department with 15 voting rights lawyers, about half the number under Obama.)

Contrary to Garland’s suggestions, voting integrity laws aim at restoring confidence in elections, not undermining it. The 2020 election involved a great deal of irregularities, from ballot drop-boxes with insecure chains of custody to the widespread mailing of mail-in ballots using outdated voter lists. Efforts to secure ballots from potential fraud are not based on disinformation or racism, but on legitimate concerns.

Yet it seems the Biden administration is intent on not just using baseless hyperbole to condemn election integrity efforts, but on weaponizing the DOJ to find pretexts to declare election-integrity measures illegal.

There are some real questions regarding the 2020 election. Those questions are being sorted out in various parts of the country. It is quite possible that massive fraud will be uncovered. What the remedy will be is anyone’s guess. It is quite possible that the news about voter fraud will be buried either by some new, breathtaking crisis or by simply not being reported. There is a group in Washington that has a vested interest in things remaining as they are. President Trump was a threat to that group. Currently there is a race between how quickly information on voter fraud can be verified and gotten out to the public and how fast those in New York State attempting to find President Trump guilty of something can come up with an excuse to arrest him.  Stay tuned.

 

This Will Not Keep Our Country Safe

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent report on domestic violent extremism.

The article reports:

Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun suggested to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday that a report on domestic violence extremism placed disproportionate interest on the pro-life movement in a “wild attack” that identified “abortion-related violent extremists” as a principal threat.

Garland testified before a Senate subcommittee Wednesday where Braun brought up a declassified intelligence report on domestic violence extremism released by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March. That report, Braun said, identified abortion-related violent extremists as a principal threat.

I don’t think the burning and looting of major cities last summer had anything to do with abortion.

The article continues:

“To me this seemed like kind of a wild attack on the pro-life community,” Braun said. “It did not list groups like BLM and Antifa, who have had a clear recent record of violent acts.”

“So can you explain what that was about?” Braun asked. “Why there would have been focus on that, and has there been a rash of incidents related to it?”

Garland said that the report described leading threats that were racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, particularly white supremacists, adding that he doesn’t know where pro-life activists fit on the “threat matrix.”

What we are watching is the criminalization of political thought. It’s okay to burn down cities, destroy businesses and loot if you are on the political left, but if you hold conservative views, you are suspected of being potentially violent. This is a serious threat to our freedom in America.

The article concludes:

The DNI report specifically mentions that abortion-related violent extremists have ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs. The declassified report does not make specific mention of Antifa or Black Lives Matter, though it explains the category that Garland mentioned — anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists, a category which includes militia violent extremists, anarchist violent extremists, and sovereign citizen violent extremists.

DNI declined to comment for this story.

An Upside Down Department Of Justice

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the priorities of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The article reports:

Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged Wednesday that the Justice Department is prioritizing prosecuting those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over those who rioted and looted during last summer’s social justice demonstrations.

“I think it’s fair to say in my career as a judge and in law enforcement, I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Mr. Garland said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “There was an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of power.

“If there has to be a hierarchy of things that we prioritize, this would be the one we would prioritize because it is the most dangerous threat to our democracy,” he continued.

It should be noted that on April 15th, MSN reported:

Federal prosecutors in Portland, Ore., have moved to dismiss almost half the cases they charged in connection with violence accompanying last year’s protests over racial injustice, as authorities grapple with how to tamp down politically motivated unrest that has arisen since then.

Of 96 cases the U.S. attorney’s office in Portland filed last year charging protesters with federal crimes, including assaulting federal officers, civil disorder, and failing to obey, prosecutors have dropped 47 of them, government documents show. Ten people have pleaded guilty to related charges and two were ordered detained pending trial. None have gone to trial.

The penalties levied so far against any federal defendants, most of whom were arrested in clashes around federal buildings in Portland including the courthouse, have largely consisted of community service, such as working in a food bank or encouraging people to vote.

On January 3rd, The Daily Caller reported:

  • At least $4 million in physical damage was done to businesses downtown during the first month of protests, according to the Portland Business Alliance.
  • The riots cost downtown Portland another $18 million in revenue, according to the PBA.

I think it’s time for the Attorney General to re-examine his priorities. Those who participated in the riot at the Capitol deserve to be punished, but none of the rioters had weapons and the only person killed was killed by the Capitol Police. The destruction and threats to human life in Portland were far more serious. The only reason for the priorities the Attorney General is stating is political bias. No wonder many Americans have lost faith in the legal system in our country.