Garland Declines to Label Antifa & BLM Violence “Terrorism”

During his Senate confirmation hearing as well, Garland emphasized the Justice Department’s responsibility to “battl[e] extremist attacks on our democratic institutions” and described the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by several hundred people claiming to be Trump supporters as “the most heinous attack on the democratic process” that he had ever seen. Republican Senator Josh Hawley — referring to the numerous, much-more-violent attacks that leftists affiliated with Antifa and Black Lives Matter had carried out against federal courthouses in Portland and Seattle during 2020 — asked Garland: “Do you regard assaults on federal courthouses or other federal property as attacks of domestic extremism, domestic terrorism?” In his reply, Garland suggested that the leftist violence did not rise to the level of “terrorism” because it mostly occurred at night:

“Well senator, my own definition, which is about the same as the statutory definition, is the use of violence or threats of violence in an attempt to disrupt the democratic processes. So an attack on a courthouse while in operation, trying to prevent judges from actually deciding cases, that plainly is domestic extremism, domestic terrorism. An attack simply on a government property at night or any other circumstances is a clear crime and a serious one and should be punished. I don’t know enough about the facts of the example you’re talking about, but that’s where I draw the line. One is—both are criminal, one is a core attack on our democratic institutions.”