Attorney General Merrick Garland defended federal law enforcement agencies as he stares down a contempt of Congress charge and as conspiracy theories about the FBI and Department of Justice rise. 

The country’s top law enforcement official addressed the repeated attacks on law enforcement officials and agencies, which he believes are born out of conspiracy theories, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post. He began his defense of the agency by citing a threat against an FBI facility in California in which a man wrote, “I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would be very explainable by your actions.”