USA TODAY International Edition
Attorney general: Fentanyl ‘ unleashed on purpose’ by Mexican drug cartels
Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged Wednesday that current anti- drug policies have been unable to halt the deadly flow of fentanyl that continues to contribute to record overdose deaths throughout the country.
“They are not stopping fentanyl from killing Americans,” Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a sometimes contentious hearing, casting the drug problem as a “horrible epidemic unleashed on purpose” by criminal cartels based in Mexico.
Pushing back on criticism of federal law enforcement’s response leveled by Sen. John Cornyn, R- Texas, the attorney general said the fentanyl scourge has been elevated to the highest levels of the Justice Department.
“We are focusing on fentanyl with enormous urgency,” Garland said.
Fentanyl is pervasive in US
The attorney general referred to efforts by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which last year seized more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl – enough to kill every American.
The highly addictive, manufactured opioid is 50 times more potent than heroin, and only a tiny amount – enough to rest on a pencil tip – can be fatal.
More than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021, and two- thirds involved fentanyl.
Cruz and Garland have heated exchange
The lethal drug epidemic was central to the attorney general’s first appearance before Congress this year. Yet it also was a session that included heated exchanges with some Republican members who accused Garland of not doing enough to protect Supreme Court justices from protests at their homes following the leaked draft opinion to overturn the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, and focusing disproportionate law enforcement resources on pro- life demonstrators.
Displaying poster board photographs of protesters gathered outside the homes of Supreme Court justices last year, Sen. Ted Cruz, R- Texas, said federal authorities failed to enforce the law prohibiting such attempts to intimidate judges.
“You did nothing!” Cruz thundered, drawing a bristling response from the attorney general.
“For the first time in the history of the Justice Department,” Garland said he dispatched 70 U. S. marshals to protect the homes of the justices around the clock.
In June, a California man was arrested after acknowledging that he traveled to the D. C. area to “kill” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, representing perhaps the most jarring recent threat against a sitting justice.
“The principal responsibility here is to protect the lives of the justices,” Garland said.
Garland calls FBI memo about Catholic parishes ‘ appalling’
Sen. Josh Hawley, R- Mo., later hammered the attorney general for contents of a January FBI memorandum issued from the bureau’s Richmond, Virginia, field office suggesting that Catholic parishes could produce potential law enforcement sources in violent extremist investigations.
“Attorney General, are you cultivating sources and spies inside” the Catholic church? Hawley asked.
Garland described the memo as “appalling,” adding the memo had been withdrawn.
He said federal authorities were “not targeting” Catholics.
Sharp questions on Trump, Biden special counsel investigations
Garland also confronted some sharp questions about separate investigations involving former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden now headed by special counsels appointed by the attorney general.
The two- pronged Trump inquiry centers on allegations the former president tried to interfere with the transfer of power after his 2020 election defeat, in addition to his retention of hundreds of classified documents recovered at his Florida estate.
Garland appointed a second special counsel to examine Biden’s handling of classified documents found at a former office space and at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Cruz suggested that the first discovery of classified documents at Biden’s office in November was not immediately disclosed because of Justice’s “political intent” to pursue an indictment in the Trump case.
Garland, who ultimately appointed a special counsel in the Biden case in January, rejected the senator’s assertion.
The problematic handling of government documents also has extended to former Vice President Mike Pence.
A small number of classified records were found at his Indiana home in January. An FBI search of Pence property last month yielded one additional document.