Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) confronted Attorney General Merrick Garland on the lies he testified to in previous congressional hearings. Merrick Garland is the most dishonest AG this country has ever seen and to think he could have ended up on the Supreme Court.
We dodged a bullet on that one. Garland claimed that the Attorney General does not decide who should be arrested, the US Marshals do. Britt did not let him get away with that.
Britt quizzed Garland on how the US Marshals handled the insurrection at the home of the Supreme Court Justices. Remember, protesting at the home of judges in the federal judiciary is in itself strictly illegal. Yet, the US Marshals arrested no one.
Senator Britt: You said, quote, “The marshals have been advised, and they know and the marshals on the ground, they have full authority to arrest people under any federal statute, including that federal statute,” end quote. That was in direct reference to Section 1507. You went on to say, the Attorney General does not decide whether to arrest. The Marshals on the scene they do make the decision of whether to arrest.”
The freshman senator continued:
Senator Britt: “After your appearance before the Judiciary Committee, we obtained copies of the slide deck that were used to train and prepare the Marshals for their protective detail at the homes of the Justices. Those training materials show that the marshals likely didn’t make any arrests under Section 1507 for a pretty simple reason they were actively discouraged from doing so. As you can see on the slide behind me, the marshals were explicitly told to avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement action involving the protester.
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It gets worse. The DOJ told the Marshals NOT TO ENGAGE in “protest-related enforcement.”
Senator Britt: The next slide directs the Marshals not to engage in protest-related enforcement actions beyond those that were strictly and immediately necessary and tailored to ensure the physical security of the justices. If you’ll see in the next slide here, it discourages the Marshals from making arrests under any section 1507 by asserting that “there may be a First Amendment right to harass the families of the judges.”
The Marshals were actually told to not enforce federal law. What would happen if conservatives were to protest at the home of a liberal justice? They would throw them in a room, lock the room, and then throw the room away.
Protesting in front of the private residence of a federal judge with the intent to influence their decision is a federal crime. But guidelines given to U.S. marshals assigned to guard the homes of Supreme Court Justices specifically said not to arrest protesters. Attorney General Merrick Garland previously told Congress that the marshals had a free hand when it came to making arrests.
The discrepancy was highlighted at a budget hearing on March 27 by freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who pointed out that training materials for the federal marshals didn’t give them a “free hand” to arrest anyone.
The marshals were discouraged from making arrests because the “no protest” law might invite legal challenges.
Republican lawmakers recently stepped up their complaints that the marshals have not acted aggressively enough to curtail noisy protests outside the homes of some conservative justices. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, Garland was pressed on why the marshals haven’t sought to arrest demonstrators under a federal statute prohibiting protests aimed at influencing federal court decisions.
“We are trying to protect the lives of justices. That is our principal priority,” Garland said on March 1. “Decisions have to be made on the ground about what is the best way to protect those lives.”
