Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) slammed Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday over the Department of Justice getting involved in cases where school officials are allegedly threatened, with Cotton telling Garland he should “resign in disgrace.”

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Garland was asked by numerous senators about a DOJ memo issued earlier this month announcing a federal government response amid school officials allegedly coming under threat from parents.

The memo was issued after the Biden administration received a Sept. 29 letter, addressed to President Joe Biden, from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) that called on the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security to combat “threats and acts of violence” and called the actions “domestic terrorism.” In a memo last week, the NSBA apologized for the letter.

When asked during the hearing if Garland would withdraw the DOJ memo, he said that would not happen.

Cotton commented on Garland citing news reports as a basis for issuing the memo and that, speaking of “news reports,” the “most prominent one in America” being the case surrounding Scott Smith, who was, along with other parents, arrested earlier this year after protesting at a June 22 school board in Loudoun County, Va., following a verbal confrontation with another parent who doubted his account of the May 28 sexual assault against his daughter at Stone Bridge High School. A male student was found guilty on Monday of the incident. A news report of the arrest of the father of the victim during the school board meeting was included as a footnote in the NSBA letter to Biden – something cited by Cotton.

Referring to the rape at Stone Bridge High, Cotton accused the Loudoun County School Board of for having “covered it up because it would have interfered with their transgender policy during Pride Month and that, Scott Smith, because he went to a school board and tried to defend his daughter’s rights, was condemned internationally.”

“Do you apologize to Scott Smith and his 15-year-old daughter, judge,” Cotton asked Garland, who previously was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“Senator, anyone whose child was raped is the most horrific crime I can imagine and is certainly entitled and protected by the First Amendment to protest to their school board about this,” said Garland.

“But he was cited by the school board association as a domestic terrorist which we know that letter and those reports were the basis for your [directive],” said Cotton.

“No, senator, that’s wrong,” protested Garland.

Cotton wasn’t having any of it.

“This is shameful. This testimony, your directive, your performance, is shameful,” said Cotton.

“That’s not,” said Garland, only to be interrupted by Cotton, who said, “You should resign in disgrace, judge.”

Although Cotton’s time expired, Garland, who was nominated in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court but was never given a hearing nor a confirmation vote, was given the opportunity to respond to Cotton.

“The news reports I’m talking about are not the news reports in that letter. There were other news reports that everybody here has heard about, subsequent reports that everybody has heard,” said Garland. “There is nothing in this memorandum and I wish if senators were concerned about this they would quote my words. This memorandum is not about parents being able to object in their school boards. They are protected by the First Amendment.”

“As long as they are no threats of violence, they are completely protected. So parents can object to their school boards about curriculum, about the treatment of their children, about school policies, all of that is 100 percent protected by the First Amendment,” he continued. “There is nothing in this memorandum contrary to that. We are only trying to prevent violence against school officials.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

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