CEDAR RAPIDS — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was in Cedar Rapids Tuesday to talk with local, state and federal law enforcement about their work to combat violent crime as part of a nationwide outreach this week to U.S. attorneys’ offices.
Garland gave opening remarks to media and highlighted some cases in the U.S. Northern District of Iowa before going into a closed-door meeting with U.S. Attorney Tim Duax, Cedar Rapids Police Chief David Dostal, Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner, and several other regional partners, including Homeland Security Investigations, ATF Kansas City Field Division, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration-Omaha Division.
Garland visited Wisconsin earlier Tuesday before arriving in Cedar Rapids. He was headed to Urbandale for a National Night Out event in the evening.
Pakistani man charged in political assassination plot
Before Garland commended Duax, his assistant prosecutors and partners on their efforts, he announced a complaint was unsealed Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York, charging an individual with ties to Iran of trying to hire hit men to assassinate a politician or a U.S. government official on American soil.
The defendant, Asif Merchant, of Pakistan, allegedly met with several individuals in New York, who he thought were hit men but who were actually undercover law enforcement, Garland said. The Department of Justice, for years, has been working to “aggressively counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American government officials for killing General (Qasem) Soleimani.”
“I do want to recognize that in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Trump last month, the American people are more aware than ever about the seriousness of the threats facing our public officials,” Garland said. “While our investigation into the attempted assassination remains ongoing, as the FBI has stated multiple times, we have not found any evidence that the shooter had accomplices or co-conspirators, either foreign or domestic.”
Garland said they haven’t found any evidence linking Merchant with the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Penn., on July 13.
Garland highlights cases with Iowa ties
Garland spoke about the importance of partnerships in confronting violent crime and protecting Iowans. He said he knew when he became U.S. Attorney General more than three years ago that the most powerful tool in addressing violent crime would be “our partnerships.”
“That was my experience as a line attorney prosecuting violent crime and drug trafficking in the early 1990s, and as a Justice Department official supervising and organizing our efforts in that regard later in the 1990s,” Garland noted.
The anti-violent crime strategy used has meant “zeroing in” on those individuals and gangs responsible for the most violent acts; making critical investments in police departments to hire more officers; and dedicating resources and initiatives aimed at “preventing and disrupting violence” before it happens.
Garland said communities are now seeing the results. Last year, the United States had one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years, which included the largest drop in homicides in 50 years.
“And according to a recent report, the first six months of this year show the trend is continuing, with further declines in violent crime in more than 40 cities,” he noted.
Garland highlighted in April the Northern District office prosecuted an individual who distributed fentanyl and heroin to a victim who overdosed and died. The offender, James Adam Earwood, 39, of Rutherfordton, N.C., advertised his drugs on a private online forum for recovering heroin users and shipped his product nationwide. He was sentenced to more than 30 years in federal prison.
In May, prosecutors secured a 15-year sentence for an Arizona man who sent thousands of fentanyl pills to an individual in Marion. Dominique Holliday, 28, of Tempe, Ariz., was convicted of one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
“In addition to our work to get fentanyl out of our communities, this office is working with its partners through the department’s Project Safe Neighborhoods program to crack down on firearms offenses and disrupt violent crime,” Garland said.
As part of that program, Duax’s office prosecuted a man who pretended to work for ATF in order to steal firearms. Ken Nakato, 36, of Coralville unlawfully possessed at least 20 firearms when he was arrested. He was sentenced to eight years.
Garland said he knew these examples were just a “snapshot” of the work this office does every day to keep the communities safe, to protect civil rights and “to ensure the rule of law.”
“I am very proud of the work of U.S. Attorney Duax and all of the men and women of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa,” Garland said in his closing remarks. “And I am equally proud of their partnerships, with the people around this table, and with the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies that work every single day to keep Iowans safe.”
Before Garland was appointed U.S. Attorney General by President Joe Biden, he was a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed in 1997, served as chief judge from 2013-20 and served as chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2017-20.
In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated him as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Senate Republicans — led by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa — refused to schedule a vote. When President Donald Trump took office in early 2017, he appointed Neil Gorsuch to the high court.
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