NEWSMAX: Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blasted Attorney General Merrick Garland for the Justice Department not arresting abortion-rights protesters demonstrating in front of Supreme Court justices’ homes.
In a letter to Garland on Tuesday, Cotton threatened impeachment proceedings if the attorney general didn’t “take immediate action to enforce the law even-handedly against your party’s political opponents.”
“Please explain why you have refused to enforce the federal law against picketing and protesting at the homes of Supreme Court Justices,” Cotton wrote Garland. “Left-wing mobs have recently targeted the homes of Justices (John) Roberts, (Samuel) Alito, (Clarence) Thomas, (Neil) Gorsuch, (Amy Coney) Barrett, and (Brett) Kavanaugh, a blatant and obvious violation of 18 USC § 1507.
“These unlawful protestors widely publicized their plans, yet it appears that no federal law-enforcement officers were present to arrest the lawbreakers and no investigation is ongoing. Further, President Biden’s own press secretary announced this week that the Biden administration ‘certainly continue[s] to encourage (protests) outside of judges’ homes, and that’s the president’s position.'”
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Cotton said Garland’s inaction was “in stark contrast to when you sicced federal agents on parents who attended public meetings of school boards in public buildings.”
“Without an adequate explanation, one can only assume that you have weaponized federal law-enforcement against your party’s political opponents,” Cotton wrote Garland.
“When you last testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee, I recommended that you resign in disgrace. Unfortunately, I see you haven’t taken my advice.”
Chief Justice Roberts last week confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court may be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide.
The news energized activists on both sides of the abortion issue.
Cotton told NBC News that while he didn’t “advocate for arresting people protesting on public streets in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital,” he did believe that “they should be arrested for protesting in the homes of judges, jurors and prosecutors. Federal law prohibits an obvious attempt to influence or intimidate judges, jurors and prosecutors.”
While White House press secretary Jen Psaki has called protests at Supreme Court justices’ homes exercises of freedom of expression, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., denounced those actions as attempts to intimidate.
“Trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of First Amendment speech or protest,” McConnell said on Monday on the Senate floor.
“It is an attempt to replace the rule of law with the rule of mobs.”
More than 75% of likely voters opposed publishing the home addresses of the conservative Supreme Court justices and were against calling for protests at the justices’ homes by pro-abortion activists, according to poll results released on Tuesday by the Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group.