To Many, the Justice Dept. Is Honoring Political Neutrality in the Breach Again
By Julie Kelly, RealClearInvestigationsSeptember 18, 2024 Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. A
In recent weeks, DOJ, led by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, has accelerated the arrest of those who protested at and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Several new defendants live in swing states, which reintroduces Jan. 6 in local and national headlines while bolstering key talking points of Democrat standard-bearer Kamala Harris and others in this year’s campaign.
Such Trump antagonists regularly describe the former president as a “threat to democracy” – rhetoric echoed by the second and latest alleged would-be Trump assassin to emerge in the campaign, before his arrest Sunday.
Justina Guardino of Moms for Liberty: Her belated arrest draws new attention to Jan. 6 in the swing state of North Carolina.
FBI via WWAY3 Wilmington NC
On the same day Garland addressed the conference, the FBI arrested Justina Guardino, a 34-year-old member of a North Carolina chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nationwide group of moms defending their children from “woke” ideology and government overreach; Trump spoke to the group in Washington last month.
According to DOJ charging documents, Guardino nonviolently entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stayed inside for approximately 10 minutes.
Despite being interviewed by law enforcement in the summer of 2022, the FBI waited more than two years to make and announce her arrest, raising questions as to whether the DOJ is delaying arrests to coincide with the election. Early voting begins in North Carolina in mid-October.
Since Aug. 1, Graves’ office has announced the arrest of several more J6ers, including individuals from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan, considered must-win states for Harris.
Appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, Graves appears to be fulfilling his pledge to bring the overall J6 caseload to 2,000 defendants before the statute of limitations runs out; the total number of defendants just exceeded 1,500 last week. Meanwhile, his office has brought one federal charge against a single pro-Hamas demonstrator despite hundreds being involved in unlawful activities such as attacking federal police officers, vandalizing property, and illegally occupying government buildings on numerous occasions in 2023 and 2024.
