Congresswoman asks AG Barr where feds were during threats, protests in Lansing
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WASHINGTON — During a heated back-and-forth Tuesday on Capitol Hill, a congresswoman said U.S. Attorney General William Barr displayed favoritism by not coming down as hard on protesters of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders as he did protesters against police brutality across the nation.
“Are you aware that these protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot and beheaded?” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington state, thundered at Barr, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee. She was apparently referring to reports of opponents of Whitmer’s orders to stop the spread of COVID-19 making violent remarks on social media, including calling for her assassination.
Barr, who went before Congress to defend the Justice Department’s actions in forcefully removing protesters from outside the White House and deploying federal officers in Portland and other cities to respond to protests, said he was unaware of it, though he was generally aware of the protests across the U.S.
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Protests in Lansing on April 30 resulted in some number of protesters bringing firearms into the Michigan State House and some legislators feeling they were taunted and threatened. It is legal under existing rules to bring guns into the State House though a commission that oversees the grounds could ban them.
Protesters argued that Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders violated their civil liberties but the governor said they were necessary at the time to stop the spread of the virus. In her comments Tuesday, Jayapal appeared to conflate the April 30 protest and other in-person protests with the comments made on social media, saying Barr should have done more.
“You are aware of certain kinds of protests but in Michigan when protesters carry guns and Confederate flags and swastikas and call for the governor of Michigan to be beheaded and shot and lynched somehow you’re not aware of that,” she said. “Somehow you didn’t know about it. So you don’t send federal agents in to do to the president’s supporters what you did to the presidents’ protesters.”
Barr said, referring to the clearing of a crowd from Lafayette Square beside the White House on June 1, that it was his duty to move the perimeter away from the Executive Mansion, despite reports that the protest was largely peaceful. Trump left the White House after the crowd was dispersed and posed for a photo-op outside a church holding a Bible.
On Tuesday, Barr appeared about to say that it was up to Michigan authorities to handle protests in Lansing but Jayapal interrupted him and he did not continue.
Contact Todd Spangler at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Congresswoman asks AG Barr where feds were during threats, protests in Lansing