Ben Sasse owning Merrick Garland super hard today at this hearing.
Keep in mind that Sasse was one of the Republicans who ran afoul of the Trump GOP, and his national political viability suffered for it, so you can't even say he's a MAGA guy trying to rile people up.
He kept demanding Garland explain why DOJ involvement is needed involving parents at school board meetings, and kept getting non-answers. Laughably Garland admitted they don't even have any data presently which suggests that violence (or threats of violence) aimed at school board officials is a major problem which needs federal interference. Remember, these sorts of things have always been investigated by local police, and there's no reason it should go beyond that. In fact, school districts are a subset of local government, and schools are state-funded and state-ruled, so it's baffling why the federal government needs to get involved in any threats against them, especially since they don't have any evidence that this is a big problem.
Garland couldn't answer to any of this, other than repeating "I'm against violence" and "We're just assessing risk", without explaining why the federal government is getting involved at all.
What a beatdown.