MISSOURI SENATOR JOSH HAWLEY ASKS ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR TO LAUNCH CIVIL RIGHTS PROBE INTO PROSECUTOR TARGETING MCCLOSKEYS
President Trump and Missouri Governor Chime In On McCloskey Case
McCloskey Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
BY LUIS MIGUEL
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is submitting a request to the Justice Department to start a civil rights investigation into the St. Louis district attorney seeking to indict the infamous couple who drew guns on the Black Lives Matter agitators who broke into their private neighborhood and allegedly threatened them on their property.
Kim Gardner, District Attorney for the St. Louis Circuit, said she was “alarmed” by the incident on June 28. Last week, local police seized the AR-15 rifle that Mark McCloskey was seen wielding in the viral video. The handgun held by his wife, Patricia, was handed over to authorities by the couple’s attorney.
Al Watkins, their former lawyer, said the search warrant was executed because Gardner “sought weapons held by Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey during June 28, 2020 in defense of themselves and their home at time of the march.” Watkins maintained that the handgun was inoperable at the time she pointed it at the neighborhood invaders and that she drew it as an “intimidation factor” for “self-defense.”
Hawley argued Garder is targeting the McCloskeys out of political motives.
“Unfortunately, this family is facing new threats, not from demonstrators but from the local government. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is now threatening to prosecute not the trespassers, but the McCloskeys, and she is using the powers of her office to target them,” he wrote to U.S. Attorney General William Barr. “Her office has seized their firearms, and police have applied for warrants in the case, with an indictment believed to be imminent.”
Hawley is a supporter or the Second Amendment who received a 93 percent approval rating from the National Rifle Association in 2018. He called Gardner’s actions an “abuse of power.”
There is no question under Missouri law that the McCloskeys had the right to own and use their firearms to protect themselves from threatened violence, and that any criminal prosecution for these actions is legally unsound. The only possible motivation for the investigation, then, is a politically motivated attempt to punish this family for exercising their Second Amendment rights.
The Second Amendment is not a second-class right. No family should face the threat of harassment or malicious prosecution for exercising that right. The Department of Justice must ensure that all Americans’ rights are protected from this kind of abuse of power.
Patricia McCloskey told Fox News’ Sean Hannity the mob threatened her and her husband. “That they were going to kill us,” she said. “They were going to come in there. They were going to burn down the house. They were going to be living in our house after I was dead. They pointed to different rooms and said, ‘That’s going to be my bedroom, and that’s going to be the living room, and I’m going to be taking a shower in that room.’... There were so many threats. Then, the dog barked, and they said, ‘I’m going to be killing her, too,’ or ‘It, too.’”
According to Mark, he and his family were having dinner outside of their mansion in a gated community when the crowd broke through the neighborhood’s iron gates, which were marked with signs that read “No Trespassing” and “Private Street.”
“A mob of at least 100 smashed through the historic wrought iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside and put us in fear of our lives,” he told KMOV4.
The McCloskeys are personal-injury lawyers who have donated to both Republicans and Democrats over the years. They have given at least $4,000 to the Democratic Party and $2,400 to the Trump campaign.
The crowd broke into the Portland Place to protest at the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, who, during a Facebook Live video, read the letters submitted by individuals who want to defund the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department — including their full names and full or partial addresses.
Of the incident, Gardner has said: “Make no mistake: we will not tolerate the use of force against those exercising their First Amendment rights, and will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable.”
Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, said at a news conference on Tuesday that he does not believe the couple should be charged and that he spoke to President Donald Trump about the case. Though Parson did not mention Gardner, she had her office post a statement on Twitter later that evening in which she claimed the governor and president are going after her.
Gardner did not explain in what way they are allegedly going after her.