On Friday’s broadcast of Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall explained the justification for his office’s raids on alleged gambling facilities in Jefferson County earlier this month.

Marshall’s office and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) raided four electronic bingo halls in the county and seized over 1,000 pieces of what was deemed to be illegal gaming equipment.

The Attorney General insisted the facilities were more than just bingo and claimed not to be on a “crusade” against illegal gambling.

“Don’t want to call it bingo parlors because that somehow would make it legitimate,” Marshall said. “These are casinos that have slot machines that are there under basically an illusory definition of something called electronic bingo. Our Supreme Court has been very clear – bingo is played on a card against other people in a traditional way that we’ve always seen it. That’s not what’s going on there. I mean, these were slot machines, row after row in four different facilities in Jefferson County. And we’re there to be able to enforce the law.”

“And it’s not as if I’m on a crusade against illegal gambling,” he continued. “My responsibility as the Attorney General of Alabama is to enforce the law. And that’s what we’ve done in Jefferson County because we saw that it wasn’t being done.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.