US Attorney General Garland talks fentanyl with Idaho police, behind closed doors | Opinion

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, appointed by President Joe Biden, was in Boise on Tuesday and met with the four police chiefs of the Treasure Valley, Ada and Canyon County sheriffs and two Idaho State Police leaders.

Garland, introduced by Idaho’s U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit, was accompanied by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, an Idaho native, along with representatives of an alphabet soup of federal agencies: ATF, DEA, FBI, IRS, etc.

Notably absent was Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador or anyone from Gov. Brad Little’s office. Also notably absent was diversity. Other than Prelogar and FBI special agent Kathryn Miller, the table was populated by white men.

A gaggle of journalists, myself included, waited for more than an hour in the conference room of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, waiting to hear eight minutes of talking points by Garland before being escorted out of the room, like a bunch of kids sent to their rooms while the adults did some “grown-up talk.” No questions.

I would have loved to have stuck around to hear the conversation after we left the room. Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, for one, has never been complimentary about this administration and has been critical of what he sees as a lack of effort to stem the flow of fentanyl from the southern border.

As it was, the group met with Garland for only about 45 minutes before Garland went into meetings with senior leadership and employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford told me after the meeting that the discussion did, indeed, focus on fentanyl and that Garland was receptive and understanding.

“I was pleasantly surprised that he was very receptive to our concerns,” Clifford told me in a phone interview. “His response was very agreeable. He recognized, ‘Yep, this is a problem, this is a scourge in our communities, this is a big deal in our entire country.’ And he recognized the problem is coming up from Mexico and the southern border. He seemed to have a grasp on the scope of the problem.”

Clifford said Garland shared that he’s been to the border many times and acknowledged that the cartels in Mexico smuggling drugs into the U.S. are out of control and the root of the problem.

Even though reporters weren’t allowed to listen in on the discussion with law enforcement, it’s not every day you have the U.S. attorney general visit Boise, so here’s what he said to the press.

“The Justice Department is working in Idaho and across the country to arrest violent felons, to seize and trace guns used in violent crime, to disrupt violent drug trafficking, and to prosecute the individuals and the gangs most responsible for the highest degree of violence,” Garland said in his brief remarks for the benefit of the media. “That includes confronting the fentanyl epidemic, which, in my view, is the deadliest threat from a drug that we have ever faced in this country.”

Garland went on to cite the decline in crime rates:

• a 15% drop in murders in Idaho,

• one of the lowest violent crime rates nationally in 50 years,

• and the largest decline in homicides nationally in 50 years.

“But I know that progress is not even and, in many communities, it’s still not been reached,” Garland said. “And in any event, there is no acceptable level of violent crime.”

Garland also highlighted some recent arrests and prison terms secured by the Attorney’s Office, in partnership with various law enforcement agencies:

• a 10-year sentence for the fifth defendant involved in a drug trafficking conspiracy to distribute over 7,000 fentanyl pills in the Magic Valley;

• a seven-year sentence for a defendant who sold lethal fentanyl pills to his coworker who died as a result;

• prosecution of two traffickers responsible for distributing methamphetamine and fentanyl in East Idaho;

• an 87-month sentence for a convicted domestic abuser who unlawfully possessed five firearms, including an untraceable ghost gun;

• a seven-year sentence against a man who unlawfully trafficked in firearms, including a loaded Glock pistol with an illegal machine gun conversion device called a Glock switch, which is capable of firing more than 1,000 rounds per minute, “making it highly lethal, not only to civilian victims, but to law enforcement,” Garland said;

• the arrest of a man on charges of providing material support to the terrorist organization ISIS in a planned attack on churches in Coeur d’Alene.

“These examples are just a snapshot of the work that this office is doing every single day on behalf of the people of Idaho, to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our communities safe, to protect civil rights and to uphold the rule of law,” Garland said. “I’m very proud of U.S. Attorney Hurwit and of all the men and women of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho, and I’m equally proud of the partnerships that they have nurtured with the law enforcement agencies represented around this table who work every single day to keep the people of Idaho safe.”

Editor’s note: This column has been updated with comments from Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford after the meeting.