Attorney General Merrick Garland generally enjoys the protection of the sycophantic Leftist media that works night and day to conceal the galloping disaster that is the Biden administration. Garland himself appears to harbor a taste for forcibly suppressing opposition voices, as became clear yet again when he set his FBI onto the trail not of jihad terrorists, or migrant criminals, or any other group that the Left would like to pretend doesn’t exist, but of disgruntled parents protesting at school board meetings against the implementation of the race-hate propaganda known as critical race theory in public schools. As Stacey Lennox noted, this “can only be described as a tactic to suppress dissent.” On Wednesday, however, Garland had an unusual experience: He ran into a dissenter. It wasn’t pretty.
The dissident in question was none other than Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who was clearly angry that Garland followed the National School Boards Association (which has since backtracked) in portraying parents as domestic terrorists simply for registering their outrage over the divisive Leftist propaganda being forced on children in public schools. Garland, however, insisted that the FBI was only concerned about threats of violence, not about simple dissent. Referring to the directive he sent to agents, he told Cotton: “Nothing in this memorandum or any memorandum is about parents expressing disagreements with their school boards. The memorandum makes clear that parents are entitled to have vigorous debates.”
WATCH: Senator @TomCottonAR calls Attorney General Merrick Garland's response to the National School Boards Association letter targeting concerned parents "shameful." pic.twitter.com/3SMdnpTEM7
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 27, 2021
However, Megan Fox recently did a deep dive into the supposed “threats” that school board members had supposedly received and that justified FBI intervention, and came up empty. Fox concluded: “There isn’t one legitimate threat on the NSBA’s list or a situation that wasn’t handled easily by the police. What the NSBA wants to do is crack down on free speech and, stupidly, they attached to their letter every example of parents speaking freely and demanding that the FBI stop it.”
Cotton was clearly aware of that, and pressed Garland: “So what is the National Security division [of the FBI] doing? They’re supposed to be chasing jihadists and Chinese spies. What is the National Security division have to do with parents at school boards?”
Garland stuck to his story, ignoring the fact that it was already in tatters: “This is not, again, about parents at school boards. This is about threats of violence.”
Cotton immediately called him on his dishonesty: “The very first line in your memorandum refers to ‘harassment and intimidation.’ Why do you continue to dissemble in front of this committee that you are only talking about violence and threats of violence?”
Cotton continued: “You’ve cited, as the basis for that directive [telling the FBI to watch school board meetings] the National School Boards Association’s letter of September 29. Was that directive being prepared before September 29, before the School Boards Association letter was issued?” Cotton was asking if Garland had planned to crack down on dissenters from critical race theory even before the National School Boards Association handed him an opportunity to do so.
Somewhat equivocally, Garland denied this: “I don’t believe so. Certainly I didn’t have any idea –”
Cotton went on: “So it was only prepared after. Okay. I think that answers the question.” Plaintively, clearly aggrieved at this point, Garland protested: “I’ve already answered that question before.”
Not about to let Garland off the hook, Cotton stated: “So you keep citing the school board letter and ‘news reports.’ News reports. One of the news reports cited in that letter, which you presumably mean, is from Loudoun County, Virginia.”
Garland tried to explain that the notorious Loudoun County story was not what he meant at all: “No, that’s not, that is not what I was talking about.”
Related: Should Merrick Garland Resign for Abuse of Power?
Cotton was having none of it: “Well, you keep citing ‘news reports’ and that is the most prominent news report that anyone in America has seen. That refers to Scott Smith, whose 15-year-old daughter was raped. She was raped in a bathroom by a boy wearing girls’ clothes and the Loudoun County School Board covered it up because it would have interfered with their transgender policy during Pride Month. And that man, Scott Smith, because he went to a school board and tried to defend his daughter’s rights, was condemned internationally. Do you apologize to Scott Smith and his 15-year-old daughter, Judge?”
The short answer was “No,” but instead Garland gave Cotton this: “Senator, anyone whose, uh, child was raped has, uh, is the most horrific crime I can imagine, and is certainly entitled and protected by the First Amendment to protest to their school board about this.”Now
Cotton pressed Garland on his contradiction: “But he was cited by the School Board association as a domestic terrorist–”
Garland: “That’s fine, but that’s not—”
Cotton: “– which we now know, that letter and those reports were the basis for your dir–.”
Garland: “No. No, Senator, that’s wrong. That’s –”
Cotton concluded: “This is, Judge, this is shameful. This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful. Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, Judge.”
Yes. The only problem is that if Garland did resign in disgrace, as he indeed should, Biden’s handlers would install a new attorney general who would be just as bad or worse. There is little doubt that the administration will continue its efforts to stigmatize and silence, and ultimately criminalize, dissent. Cotton is to be commended for calling out the dissembling fascist who currently heads the Justice Department.
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