{"id":1677392,"date":"2022-10-07T06:38:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T10:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1677392"},"modified":"2022-10-07T06:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T10:38:37","slug":"the-first-thing-republicans-should-do-when-they-take-back-congress-is-impeach-merrick-garland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-first-thing-republicans-should-do-when-they-take-back-congress-is-impeach-merrick-garland\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Thing Republicans Should Do When They Take Back Congress Is Impeach Merrick Garland"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-first-thing-republicans-should-do-when-they-take-back-congress-is-impeach-merrick-garland%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1677392&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Should Republicans take control of the U.S. House and Senate in November, their first order of business \u2014 before tax and spending cuts, abortion restrictions, gun legislation, or anything else in their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.republicanleader.gov\/commitment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">predictably anodyne agenda<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 should be to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Under Garland, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized, transformed into instruments of terror aimed at ordinary American citizens who have the temerity to oppose the Biden administration\u2019s radical agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tax cuts for domestic manufacturers, or whatever out-of-touch, boilerplate thing GOP leaders imagine their priority should be once they regain Congress, can wait. The urgent thing now is to impeach and remove Garland before he causes irreparable harm to the republic.<\/p>\n<p>Everything Garland has done as attorney general has been mendaciously political, from smearing parents who speak out at school board meetings as \u201cdomestic terrorists\u201d to targeting peaceful anti-abortion activists <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/06\/if-peacefully-protesting-abortion-is-criminal-but-firebombing-pregnancy-centers-is-not-there-is-no-rule-of-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">while doing nothing<\/a> about actual pro-abortion vigilantes attacking churches and crisis pregnancy centers. He has to be stopped, and a determined GOP-led Congress is the only thing that can stop him.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"khgLtwj9KJcZBREWfYaoCTq8MIUui6Fyx7PHG5bOrA30pnDQsvX2Vdmz\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NEW: FBI will not share whether it has made a single arrest in its stated investigation into attacks on pro-life centers + orgs + Catholic churches following the leak of the Dobbs opinion. And some pro-life orgs tell me they never heard from the feds. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rVbywje9Gs\">https:\/\/t.co\/rVbywje9Gs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaryMargOlohan\/status\/1578047308003950595?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>And by the way, once they\u2019ve gotten rid of Garland, congressional Republicans should make their very next order of business dismantling the FBI and DOJ. Both of these agencies have proven themselves to be corrupted beyond repair. They are enemies of the American people and must be scrapped entirely and replaced by something new \u2014 something with far less power and far more accountability.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If that sounds drastic or melodramatic, as it might to some indifferent or merely idiotic Republican lawmakers, consider the shocking news this week that Garland\u2019s DOJ has once again used the FBI to target peaceful anti-abortion activists for exercising their First Amendment rights. On Tuesday night, armed FBI agents\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/06\/if-peacefully-protesting-abortion-is-criminal-but-firebombing-pregnancy-centers-is-not-there-is-no-rule-of-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">swarmed into the home of 73-year-old anti-abortion activist Chet Gallagher<\/a>\u00a0on the outrageous pretext that he had violated an obscure federal statute, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or \u201cFACE Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, what Gallagher and 10 other activists had done was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2022\/10\/05\/fbi-raids-home-of-pro-life-advocate-who-prayed-and-sang-outside-abortion-biz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pray and sing in the hallway of a medical building that houses an abortion facility<\/a>\u00a0in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, last March. The protest was entirely peaceful, as ample video footage \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/fbi-charges-multiple-individuals-peaceful-protests-abortion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">livestreamed on Facebook by the activists themselves<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 attests. A few of them were arrested without incident by local police on misdemeanor trespass charges and promptly released.<\/p>\n<p>But in Garland\u2019s DOJ, what they did was use \u201cforce and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the clinic and a patient who was seeking reproductive health services.\u201d So reads\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/eleven-defendants-indicted-obstructing-reproductive-health-services-facility-tennessee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the indictment<\/a>, a document so disconnected from reality that its mere existence beggars belief.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And yet it comes on the heels of an equally shocking FBI raid last month on the home of Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven and anti-abortion activist who was arrested at gunpoint in front of his terrified wife and small children. His crime? He alleged violated \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 the FACE Act.<\/p>\n<p>But in Houck\u2019s case, the charges are even more spurious than those leveled against the Tennessee activists. The incident in question involved an altercation last October between Houck and a man named Bruce Love, a pro-abortion activist and escort \u2014\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0an abortion provider or a woman seeking an abortion \u2014 near an abortion clinic in Philadelphia. Love allegedly got in the face of Houck\u2019s 12-year-old son and was relentlessly harassing him. An altercation ensued, and Houck reportedly shoved Love, who fell to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>But as my colleague Margot Cleveland recently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/04\/with-new-documents-the-biden-administrations-targeting-of-a-pro-life-dad-just-got-crazier\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted in these pages<\/a>, by Love\u2019s own account the altercation didn\u2019t amount to a violation of the FACE Act \u201cbecause Houck was standing at a corner away from the abortion facility, no clients were involved, and the alleged assault had nothing to do with so-called reproductive services.\u201d That is to say, the government\u2019s case here is extremely weak and will likely be dismissed before a trial ever takes place, as a fair number of other alleged violations of the FACE Act have been in the past.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s more, Cleveland detailed how Houck\u2019s attorney was in touch with the Justice Department about the matter months before the FBI raided Houck\u2019s home, and offered to have Houck appear voluntarily in response to a summons. That email was sent in June, but the first response Houck\u2019s attorney got from the DOJ was on Sept. 23,\u00a0<em>after<\/em> Houck had already been arrested at his home at gunpoint in front of his family.<\/p>\n<p>These cases, though, are just the latest in a long train of egregiously selective enforcement of federal law by the Garland DOJ that\u2019s clearly intended to intimidate otherwise law-abiding American citizens. The same U.S. attorney pursuing the bogus case against Houck, Anita Eve, has also handled some 40 Jan. 6 cases, in which similarly over-the-top arrest tactics were used. Indeed, Garland\u2019s DOJ has thrown the book at hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants whose misdeeds in many cases amount to little more than unintentional trespassing.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the FBI won\u2019t say whether it has made even a single arrest in the dozens of attacks against churches, crisis pregnancy centers, and other pro-life organizations in the wake of the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0leak in May. The FBI\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2022\/10\/06\/fbi-wont-provide-updates-say-whether-it-has-arrested-anyone-over-attacks-on-pro-life-organizations-centers-churches\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">admitted to The Daily Signal<\/a>\u00a0this week (in a statement that is almost identical to one it issued the outlet in June) that it is investigating the attacks, and even that it considers some of them potential acts of domestic violent extremism or possible violations of the FACE Act.<\/p>\n<p>Yet for all that, the FBI has failed to announce a single arrest in connection with some 83 attacks on Catholic Churches and 73 crisis pregnancy centers. Strange then that it would have time to track down Houck and the 73-year-old Gallagher (not to mention\u00a0<em>87-year-old Eva Edl<\/em>, a woman named in the Tennessee indictment).<\/p>\n<p>All of this amounts to precisely what it looks like: the weaponization of the Justice Department for partisan political ends. If a new Republican majority in Congress does nothing else next year, it should impeach Garland and dismantle a hopelessly corrupted DOJ and FBI. Whether GOP leaders realize it, the future of the republic might just depend on them gutting up in the next Congress and doing what needs to be done.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should Republicans take control of the U.S. House and Senate in November, their first order of business \u2014 before tax and spending cuts, abortion restrictions, gun legislation, or anything else<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1677392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1677392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1677392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1677392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1677392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1677392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1677392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}