Exclusive: Sen. Tom Cotton Pressures Merrick Garland over ‘Handcuffing’ Police

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) used a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday to accuse the Biden administration of “handcuffing” law enforcement, leading to higher crime.

Cotton, the Senate Republican Conference chair, sent his missive to Garland, sounding the alarm about the Justice Department’s “last-minute takeover of a dozen police departments across the country using federal consent decrees.”

The Washington Post has reported the Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened “pattern or practice” investigations into 12 local law-enforcement agencies in a “rush to gain federal control of these agencies before President Biden leaves office.”

Cotton continued:

No police department—like any human institution—is without flaw, but federal consent decrees have a well-established and atrocious record of increasing crime and endangering law-abiding citizens. Violent crime has surged in seven out of twelve cities that entered federal consent decrees since 2012. For instance, violent crime soared by 61 percent in Los Angeles County, 36 percent in Albuquerque, 27 percent in Seattle, 20 percent in New Orleans, and 19 percent in Maricopa County.

Your department is reportedly nearest to entering consent decrees with Minneapolis and Louisville, where murders have already reached record highs in recent years. The last thing these cities need is unqualified defund-the-police radicals like Kristen Clarke micromanaging their police departments for the next ten years.

“Crime has risen during the Biden administration and your tenure as Attorney General. We should be arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating criminals—not handcuffing our police,” the Arkansas Republican charged.

Sen. Tom Cotton concluded in his letter to Garland, “I object to your efforts to perpetuate this administration’s failed policies. I urge you to drop these midnight lawsuits and let the new administration get about the business of protecting Americans from violent criminals.”

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.