Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy is one of the most annoying and arrogant people in Congress, and he made a complete ass of himself on Tuesday during a hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland, proving just how completely clueless many in the GOP are when it comes to the issue of law enforcement.
Kennedy began his remarks by attacking Garland:
“I think the Justice Department is losing. I think you’re losing on crime. I think you’re losing on drugs. I think you’re losing on immigration. I think you’re losing on Chirenese espionage.”
From there, Kennedy asked about dirty cops:
“Let me start with crime. What percentage of cops in America do you think are bad cops?”
Garland:
“A very small percentage.”
Rather than let the attorney general continue his remarks, Kennedy interrupted to ask:
“How small? Is it less than 10%?”
AG Garland responded:
“Yes, let me be clear. We believe that most police officers follow the Constitution. Most police departments do. All police officers, I believe, want to work in police departments that follow constitutional policing requirements.”
Next, Kennedy asked about stop and frisk, though he was hardly able to call it by its proper name:
“Why doesn’t the Justice Department support stop question, and frisk?”
Garland replied:
“I don’t know that the Justice Department has a position. This is a state and local role normally”
Rather than accept that response, Kennedy asked:
“Why doesn’t the Justice Department aggressively encourage law enforcement officials to use that technique? It’s been declared constitutional as you know?”
The AG again noted that stop and frisk is left to local law enforcement, which led to an extended rant from Sen. Cornpone:
“Here’s what I’m asking. Let’s take Chicago, where you have, we haven’t made any inroads and stopping the killing. Chicago is now the world’s largest outdoor shooting range. We know that a lot of the shootings come from gangs. Why wouldn’t you want to call the police chief, the mayor in Chicago, and say, ‘look, you know who these gang members are. When you have reasonable suspicion, and objective standard, more than just a hunch, why don’t you aggressively stop, question, and frisk these gang members?’ You get guns off the street. You’ll get drugs off the street and you get at a lot of gang members off the street. You’ll stop people killing each other. Why won’t you do that?”
Garland patiently tried to explain:
“The best way for the federal government to stop violent crime is to work at each local level and determine and let the state and locals determine what the best use of their –“
Kennedy rudely interrupted the attorney general yet again:
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m trying to get some answers. Why won’t you do that?”
Garland answered:
“Because there is no one solution fits all that the federal government can suggest to state and local law enforcement.”
Someone needs to explain some basic facts to Sen. Kennedy. Then again, as stupid as he seems to be, all the explanations in the world would probably leave him nonplussed.
