Merrick Garland lets domestic terrorists know there's a new sheriff in town

Opinion by Dana Milbank
Columnist

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, was one of those most responsible for the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, which resulted in the deaths of three police officers and the injuries of 140 others.

And now, he has the gall to claim he stands with the police.

On Monday, questioning attorney general nominee Merrick Garland, Hawley declared that a months-long increase in crime has been accompanied by “increasing calls by some activists, including members of the United States Congress, to ‘defund the police.’ ” Hawley, informing Garland that such calls send “the wrong message to law enforcement” and make them feel “under siege,” demanded Garland “tell me your position on defunding the police.”

Hawley, you’ll recall, is the guy who raised a fist of solidarity to the mob before the Capitol attack, and the guy whose home-state Kansas City Star charged that he “has blood on his hands in [the] Capitol coup attempt.”

Garland, who prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing perpetrators before becoming a federal judge, fixed a steady gaze on Hawley. “As you no doubt know, President Biden has said he does not support defunding the police, and neither do I,” he said. “We saw how difficult the lives of police officers were in the body-cam videos we saw when they were defending the Capitol.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/22/merrick-garland-lets-domestic-terrorists-know-theres-new-sheriff-town/