A Senate Republican revealed during a March 28 hearing that an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memo dissuaded U.S. Marshals from arresting protestors in violation of laws against picketing the homes of judges.
During that and other testimony, Garland has insisted that the decision to arrest protestors lies with U.S. Marshals.
“U.S. Marshals have the authority to arrest anyone under that statute or any other federal statute,” Garland said. “The attorney general does not make the decision to arrest. The Marshals on the scene—they do make the decision of whether to arrest.”
But newly uncovered materials used to train Marshals to protect the homes of SCOTUS justices show that they were “actively discouraged” from making arrests on grounds of this statute, Britt said.
“Those materials show that the Marshals likely didn’t make any arrests because they were actively discouraged from doing so,” Britt said.
The training materials told the Marshals “to avoid, unless absolutely necessary, any criminal enforcement action involving the protestors.”
Marshals were also told, “Making arrests and initiating prosecutions is not the goal of the [Marshal Service] presence at SCOTUS residences.”
“The ‘not’ is actually italicized and underlined,” Britt noted.
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