Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen appeared on KGVO's Talk Back show on Friday after speaking at the Missoula Law Enforcement Memorial ceremony at Rose Memorial Park on Thursday evening.

This is Police Week, and  Knudsen specifically addressed the issue of why so many out-of-state law enforcement personnel are deliberately moving to Montana.

“That's why they're here,” began Knudsen. “They are leaving unfriendly ‘defund the police’ states and ‘defund the police’ cities and they're coming here, and that's why I think weeks like this are very important. They see how much we value them, and how much we recognize the important work that they do; its very important.”

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After so many bills passed by the Montana Legislature were nullified by Montana judges, Knudsen was transparent about his severe criticism of the Montana judicial system.

“I'll just say it,” he said. “I'm very critical of the Montana Supreme Court and I'm going to continue to be. We've got a bunch of liberal ideologues on the Montana Supreme Court who made law here. They went to a result that they wanted to get to. That is not what judges are supposed to do. That is not what Supreme Court justices they're supposed to do. They're supposed to interpret the law and determine if it's constitutional, and not whether they agree with that law or not. They're supposed to be unbiased, nonpartisan, and the problem we've got is that we've got an extremely activist, partisan Supreme Court.”

Knudsen then turned his attention to the explosion of fentanyl overdoses and deaths in Montana.

“This fentanyl problem; I cannot overstate this one,” he said. “In just in the last two years, our fentanyl cases in the state have gone up almost 1,500 percent. We went from having one or two fentanyl investigations just a couple of years ago to now where we're pushing 100, and this year is tracking up even more. Our fentanyl deaths confirmed by the State Crime Lab here in Missoula have increased like 1,200 percent just in the last year. This fentanyl thing is terrifying, and it is all coming from the Mexican drug cartels.”

Continuing on that theme, Knudsen specifically blamed the fentanyl epidemic on Communist China.

“The Chinese are providing fentanyl; that’s 100 percent accurate; 100 percent. “You are exactly right, and you are also right that it does not take a security clearance or badge to know that that is widely known within the law enforcement and intelligence world. The Mexican drug cartels are largely being supplied with the raw ingredients to manufacture fentanyl by the Chinese.”

Click this link to hear the entire Talk Back conversation with Attorney General Knudsen.

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