By BETHANY BLANKLEY
THE CENTER SQUARE CONTRIBUTOR
(The Center Square) — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have until March 1 to turn over documents to the House Judiciary Committee about alleged FBI investigations into parents attending school board meetings in response to a memo Mr. Garland issued 17 months ago.
Since October 2021, Republican members of the committee have sent more than 100 letters to Biden administration officials “requesting answers about how the administration used federal counterterrorism resources against American parents,” the committee said in a news release earlier this month.
“Whistleblowers have disclosed how, shortly after Attorney General Garland formally directed the FBI to take action, the FBI’s Counterterrorism and Criminal Divisions created a specific threat tag for school board-related threats and even opened investigations into parents simply for speaking out on behalf of their children,” the committee said.
Attorney General Garland’s directive was issued after the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Joe Biden “urging him to weaponize the Patriot Act against parents. Emails later showed how the Biden White House had advance knowledge of this letter and its contents and raised no objection,” the committee said.
Mr. Garland’s memo referred to a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,” and directed FBI and other federal law enforcement agents to monitor activities of parents and school boards nationwide.
Soon after Attorney General Garland issued the memo, he was called to testify before the committee. He said he issued the memo because there were “reports of violence and threats of violence.”
In a news release at the time, he also said, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
He testified before the committee, “I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism,” saying the Department of Justice wasn’t targeting parents. The DOJ continues to maintain this claim.
Shortly thereafter, a coalition of attorneys general called on Attorney General Garland to produce evidence to support his claims. They argued the DOJ targeting parents is unconstitutional and an abuse of power and said Mr. Garland must revoke his directive, which he has yet to do. The AGs received no response to their requests and sued last March.
Meanwhile, an FBI whistleblower came forward, and by May 2022, Republican U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mike Johnson of Louisiana sent a letter to Attorney General Garland, stating the whistleblower provided evidence that contradicted his testimony. The FBI was, in fact, investigating parents, according to an Oct. 20, 2021, email made available to the committee.
The FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and Criminal Division announced it created a new threat tag for its internal system to label parents, called “EDUOFFICIALS,” and directed FBI personnel to apply the tag to all “school board-related threats,” according to their letter.
The FBI maintains it hasn’t and isn’t targeting parents or investigating speech at school board meetings.
After the whistleblower information was made public, Florida-based Moms for Liberty founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said, “We now have proof of what many of us suspected and some of us knew: that the Department of Justice was using counter-terrorism authority under the Patriot Act to investigate parents of schoolchildren who were exercising their First Amendment right to petition their local government for a redress of grievances.”
