The Breitbart News reported Tuesday, May 4, that Attorney General Merrick Garland testified the same day before the House of Representatives that $85 million would be added to the Biden administration’s 2022 budget for the Justice Department to combat domestic terrorism in the United States.
Garland told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science (House) that “the budget includes addressing international and domestic terrorism while respecting civil liberties by providing the FBI’s domestic terrorism investigations by adding $45 million and $40 million for U.S. Attorneys to manage the growing number of domestic terrorism cases.”
Meanwhile, Democrats sought to label the Trump supporters who protested at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as domestic terrorists, violent domestic extremists and white supremacists. Committee Chairman Democrat Matt Cartwright (D-Mass.) said at the hearing that the “attack on the Capitol” was an “unprecedented” threat from violent domestic extremism. Garland also said his top priority as attorney general is to investigate the Jan. 6 incident, and revealed that the Justice Department has charged more than 400 people so far.
The committee’s ranking member, Republican Robert Aderholt, raised with Garland that the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting against Republican lawmakers was considered domestic terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) after the incident, and that the congressman’s question was why the FBI classified the case as a ” suicide by cop” rather than domestic terrorism.
The attorney general said he hasn’t had a chance to talk to the FBI about the matter and promised he would approach the FBI about it.
The Justice Department’s general budget request would also increase civil rights funding by $33 million, bringing the total to $209 million for civil rights units, community relations services and related civil rights work; “$1 billion” to support the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW); “$1 billion” for community policing work and addressing domestic terrorism. The budget for “community policing and addressing systemic inequities” is $1.2 billion, an increase of $304 million, and $232 million for community violence intervention programs, improved background checks, and more comprehensive gun control regulations.
Garland also said he would strengthen the Justice Department’s work on environmental justice, requesting a 21 percent budget increase for the Executive Office for Immigration Review to hire 100 new immigration judges, improve efficiency and reduce the immigration court backlog of nearly 1.3 million cases.
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