Virginia AG blasts AG Garland over handling of protests at Supreme Court justices' homes

Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares on Thursday called out Attorney General Merrrick Garland for his handling of protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices in the wake of a leaked draft opinion indicating that the court was likely to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion last year.

The May 2022 leak led to demonstrations outside the Virginia and Maryland residences of numerous justices, including serious efforts to obtain their addresses and distribute them to protesters. Among the more serious altercations stemming from that development was an alleged assassination attempt on Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The suspect has pleaded not guilty in that incident.

Federal law prohibits efforts to coerce judicial officials or extrajudicial attempts to influence their decisions and Attorney General Merrick Garland has attracted scrutiny for his seemingly lax response to the demonstrations.

"There is no will to enforce the law," Miyares told the Washington Times. "There’s federal law right now to protect the justices, and that’s one of our biggest problems in government, is a lack of will."

He further told the outlet's reporters that the justices who reside in Virginia benefit from state law enforcement surveillance of their homes, saying "I can assure you this — without revealing too much — is that there is a heavy, heavy state police presence at every one of these, both visible and not visible, and that’s all I’ll say."

Miyares is not Garland's only critic, meanwhile. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan this week wrote to U.S. Marshals Service Director Ronald Davis demanding that he provide lawmakers with information on the agency's handling of the demonstrations, in particular asking after training slides "that [allegedly] discouraged Marshals from arresting leftwing protesters illegally harassing Supreme Court justices outside their homes."

"Among other things, the training slides instructed Marshals 'to avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement,' stated that 'making arrests and initiating prosecutions is not the goal,' that arrests of protestors should be a 'last resort' and would be 'counter-productive,'" Jordan wrote. "These directives appear to contradict Attorney General Garland’s previous statements to Congress that Marshals had 'full authority' to make arrest decisions."

Miyares addressed the same issue, pointing to Garland's own statements indicating he was unaware of such materials in the possession of the Marshals. The Virginia AG suggested that his statements contradict existing evidence, saying "[h]e’s claiming these marshals had independent authority [to make arrests] when the reality is, it seems like everything we’ve seen so far, is they were not directed to do so."

He further indicated that he had sought the same materials from agency as Jordan.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.