Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake told rally-goers she would order state police to arrest federal agents who try to enforce a policy that doesn’t actually exist.
The former local tV news anchor is currently locked in a tight race with Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. The preponderance of recent polling shows Lake with a slight lead.
During the campaign event, Lake referenced a widespread conservative talking point about a nonexistent U.S. Department of Justice policy:
I don’t believe parents are terrorists at all. And I’ll tell you what. If I were governor right now, and Joe Biden even thought he was gonna send his FBI or DOJ in to start coming after our parents, they would be met at the airport with the state police and arrested for going after our rights.
We finally, as parents, have to rise up and say, “No, we’re gonna take this anymore and they call us terrorists. That’s unbelievable. We’re in an upside-down world and we need to right it.”
Lake’s scenario about federal agents trying to arrest innocent parents just doesn’t square with the facts.
For more than a year, right-wing media and politicians have seized on a DOJ memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland in October 2021 about threats to school officials across the country. Some conservative media outlets had been pushing a narrative that students around the U.S. were being taught critical race theory and indoctrinated about transgender issues.
As a result, school officials were threatened and school board meetings became highly-charged affairs. In response, the DOJ issued a memo, stating in part:
Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.
The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate. In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.
Some conservatives falsely claimed the memo was a directive to target parents who had simply voiced concerns about their children’s education. They even claimed the memo labels such parents as “domestic terrorists,” but that is also false. In fact, the memo does not even mention the word “parents.”
In September, a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by parents over the memo.
“None of the documents that the plaintiffs allege establish the policy create an imminent threat of future legal actions against anyone, much less the plaintiffs,” the judge wrote.
Lake has refused to say whether she will accept the results of Tuesday’s election if she loses.
* Article from: mediate.com