CrimsonPhantom
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RE: Garland Declines to Say He Will Keep Special Counsel John Durham
Quote:President Joe Biden’s nominee for United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, told lawmakers on Monday he is unaware that Mexican drug cartels game the nation’s asylum system.
During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Garland was asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) if he had ever visited the U.S.-Mexico border to which the federal appeals court judge said he has not.
“No sir, I haven’t,” Garland said when Graham asked.
Specifically, Garland said he is unaware that cartels game the asylum system to tie up Department of Homeland Security (DHS) resources.
The exchange went as follows:
GRAHAM: I’d like you to go because I just got back and I learned that drug cartels are using our asylum laws against us. They will collect people to sort of rush the border and once they are apprehended and most of these claims, 90 percent are rejected. And that will take resources away from securing the border and detecting drugs and protecting the nation against terrorism. This is a behavior by the cartels. Will you look into that practice of using asylum claims by drug cartels to weaken border security? [Emphasis added]
GARLAND: I had not known about this and I will certainly look into this problem. I think the drug cartels are a major menace to our society. The poison that they put into our streets is damaging communities of every kind. [Emphasis added]
Despite Garland’s unawareness, Biden’s DHS Joint Task Force West Director Manuel Padilla, Jr. detailed in a November 2019 interview with Breitbart News how the cartels control the U.S.-Mexico border with violence, extortion, and deception.
The gaming of the U.S. asylum system by the cartels is well documented by experts, federal officials, and agents on the ground. In June 2019, Breitbart News exclusively reported leaders of the Gulf Cartel help traffic migrants into the state of Texas.
The cartel operation has also been acknowledged by establishment media. In March 2019, the Washington Post reported how cartels traffic migrants into the U.S. by utilizing the asylum system. In November 2016, federal immigration officials exclusively told Breitbart News the cartels often coach migrants on how to fraudulently claim asylum in the U.S.
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Quote:Judge Merrick Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that Antifa’s attacks on the U.S. courthouse in Portland last year may not have been “domestic terrorism,” because unlike the Capitol riot, they took place at night when the court was not “in operation.”
Garland, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General, was questioned at his confirmation hearing by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):
Sen. Hawley: Let me ask you about assaults on federal property in places other than Washington, DC — Portland, for instance, Seattle. Do you regard assaults on federal courthouses or other federal property as acts of domestic extremism, domestic terrorism?
Judge Garland: Well, Senator, my own definition, which is about the same as the statutory definition, is the use of violence or threats of violence in 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 kind of 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, but one is a core attack on our democratic institutions.
Last August, then-Attorney General William Barr described the attacks on the courthouse:
Behind the veil of “protests,” highly organized violent operators have carried out direct attacks on federal personnel and property, particularly the federal courthouse in Portland. Shielded by the crowds, which make it difficult for law enforcement to detect or reach them, violent opportunists in Portland have attacked the courthouse and federal officers with explosives, lasers, projectiles, and other dangerous devices. In some cases, purported “journalists” or “legal observers” have provided cover for the violent offenders; in others, individuals wearing supposed press badges have themselves attacked law enforcement or trespassed on federal property. More than 200 federal officers have been injured in Portland alone.
The riots resulted in the front of the courthouse being boarded up; the destruction of security equipment protecting the courthouse; and the breaking of windows in the offices of federal prosecutors.
Garland cited the domestic terrorism statute, which defines “domestic terrorism” as follows (18 USC § 2331):
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and © occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States
Notably, the statute does not confine acts of domestic terrorism to working hours.
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Quote:Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland struggled Monday with questions about the death penalty during his confirmation hearing in the Senate.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) questioned Garland about the death penalty, noting Biden’s publicly stated support for a death penalty moratorium.
Cotton noted that Garland worked on the case against domestic terrorist and white supremacist Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City and asked if he believed it was a mistake to level the death penalty.
Garland confirmed he supported the death penalty at that time.
“I don’t have any regret but I have developed concerns about the death penalty in the twenty-some years since then,” he said.
Garland expressed his concern about the racial disparities in death penalty cases.
Cotton continued his line of questioning, raising the high-profile prosecution of Dylann Roof for the massacre of nine black Americans at a Charleston church.
“Do you believe that it was a mistake to seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof for murdering nine African-Americans as they worshiped in church?” Cotton asked.
Garland said he would not speak about a pending case.
Roof was sentenced to death in January 2017 and awaits execution.
When Cotton asked Garland if he would ever seek the death penalty if confirmed as Attorney General, he replied, “I think it does depend on what policy is adopted going forward.”
Biden campaigned for president on ending the death penalty, which, if fully realized, could mean that Roof may not be executed.
Over three dozen Democrat lawmakers wrote to Biden shortly after he was inaugurated asking him to commute the death sentences for criminals on death row.
“Commuting the death sentences of those on death row and ensuring that each person is provided with an adequate and unique re-sentencing process is a crucial first step in remedying this grave injustice,” the letter read.
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Quote:Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) pressed U.S. Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland about the controversial past views and statements of two other Department of Justice nominees, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, in a Senate hearing Monday.
Gupta is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be Associate Attorney General. She led the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama, and subsequently joined a left-wing organization, helped lead opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She co-wrote an article in October 2019 in which she stated: “As much as the federal courts can protect our civil rights, they can also abandon the rule of law — and abandon us, leaving our communities to the mercy of people and institutions driven by hate, bigotry and fear of any threat to the status quo. Republicans have planted the seeds of this takeover for decades — and now, they are leaping into action.”
Clarke is Biden’s nominee to head the Civil Rights Division. As a Harvard student in 1994, she published a letter in the student newspaper suggesting that black people are superior to white people. She also invited an antisemitic lecturer to campus and defended his views as based on “indisputable fact.”
Lee began by asking Garland if he believed that there was necessarily a racist motivation behind efforts to purge voter rolls of people who had died, or moved out of state. Garland said that he did not want to speculate on motives, but seemed to allow that there could be non-racist motives.
The following exchange then ensued between Lee and Garland:
Sen. Lee: Do you believe Republicans in the United States — and by Republicans, I mean as a whole — are determined to “leave our communities to the mercy of people and institutions driven by hate, bigotry, and fear of any threat to the status quote?”
Judge Garland: I don’t make generalizations about members of political parties. I would never do that.
Sen. Lee: I appreciate that, and I wouldn’t expect otherwise. The reason I raise these ones, these are questions that have been drawn from comments made by Vanita Gupta, who has been nominated to be Associate Attorney General [and] has advocated for each of these positions.
Judge Garland: Well, Senator, I know Vanita Gupta now quite well — I didn’t know her before, but since the nomination, I’ve gotten a chance to talk with her and speak with her. I have to tell you, I regard her as a person of great integrity and a person who is dedicated to the mission of the department, and particularly equal justice under the law.
Sen. Lee: I’m not asking you to weigh in on her as a person, I’m just talking about the comments. Let’s move on. Would an individual’s past statements, statements in the past, as an adult, declaring that one racial group is superior to another, would statements like that be relevant to an evaluation of whether such a person should be put in charge of running the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division?
Judge Garland: So, Senator, I have read in the last few days these allegations about Kristin Clarke, who I have also gotten to know, who I also trust, who I believe is a person of integrity, whose views about [the] Civil Rights Division I have discussed with her and they are in line with my own. I have every reason to want her. She is an experienced former line prosecutor of hate crimes and we need somebody like that to be running —
Sen. Lee: I’m asking about the statement, I’m not asking about her as a person. I’m asking about the statement. Would — in the abstract — would someone who has made that comment, would that comment itself be relevant to the question whether that person, having made that statement, should be put in charge of running the Civil Rights Division?
Judge Garland: All i can tell you is i have had many conversations with her, about her views about that, about the Civil Rights Divisinon, about what kind of matters she would investigate —
Sen. Lee: What about anti-semitic comments? Would those be relevant to someone wanting to run the —
Judge Garland: You know my views about antisemitism. No one needs to question those, obviously.
Sen. Lee: I’m not questioning you at all.
Judge Garland: I know you’re not, but I also want you to know I’m a pretty good judge of what an antisemite is, and I do not believe she is an antisemite. And I do not believe she is discriminatory in any sense.
Sen. Lee: Okay, tell me this, judge. You are a man of integrity and one who honors and respects the laws. What assurances can you give us — as one who has been nominated to serve as Attorney General of the United States, that you, if confirmed as Attorney General of the United States, what assurances can you give Americans who are Republican, who are pro-life, who are religious, people members of certain minority groups — you know, in short, more than half the country, telling them that the U.S. Department of Justice, if you’ll confirmed will protect them if Department of Justice leaders have condoned radical positions like those I have described.
Judge Garland: Look, I will say again. I don’t believe that either Vanita or Kristen condone those positions and I have complete faith in them, but we are a leadership team, along with Lisa Monaco, that will run the department and the final decision is mine. The buck stops with me, as Harry S. Truman said. And I will assure the people that you’re talking about, I am a strong believer in religious liberty, and there will not be any discrimination under my watch.
Garland appeared to lose his composure as he defended Gupta and Clarke. Senate Judiciary Chair Richard Durbin (D-IL) suggestions that questions about other nominees wait until they have the chance to appear, but Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that she appreciated the chance to hear Garland defend the nominees who had been chosen to work with him.
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