Garland won’t say if Youngkin right to pardon father charged after protesting daughter’s sexual assault

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to say Wednesday whether Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, should have pardoned a father who was arrested in 2021 when he tried to defend his daughter during a local school board meeting.

Youngkin pardoned Scott Smith, who was arrested during a meeting of the Loudoun County School Board on June 22, 2021, where he intended to comment on the mishandling of his daughter’s sexual assault in a school restroom the previous September.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, asked Garland whether Youngkin was correct to grant the pardon as he questioned the attorney general during a House Judiciary Committee hearing called “Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

“I don’t know the facts of the case, so I’m not in a position …” Garland said, before being cut off by Roy.

In 2021, the National School Boards Association cited Smith’s arrest in a letter to Garland. Shortly afterward, Garland issued an Oct. 4, 2021, memo calling on the FBI to “use its authority” against those who threaten public school officials.

The 2021 sexual assault of Smith’s daughter occurred inside a girl’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School by a male student who was wearing a skirt.

“We righted a wrong. He should’ve never been prosecuted here,” Youngkin said of Smith on “Fox News Sunday” when announcing the pardon.

“This was a dad standing up for his daughter, and just to remind everyone, his daughter had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a school and no one was doing anything about it.”