Garland vs. Parents House Republicans report Justice Department investigations of school board protesters. By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/garland-vs-parents-11652388388?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
“Even beyond the question of Mr. Garland’s candor in his testimony to Congress, is there any way to look at this re-engineering of Justice priorities as anything other than partisan, ideological and threatening to liberty?This column may have to make it an annual habit to express gratitude to the man who kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court.”
How far has the U.S. Department of Justice gone to investigate parents who were angry with local school boards and administrators? A new report from two Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee suggests that federal powers are being misused just as First Amendment defenders feared.
Readers may recall the revelations that came to light last fall. A Journal editorial noted in October:
It took a few weeks, but the National School Boards Association has apologized for sending a letter to President Biden suggesting that “threats and acts of violence” at school board meetings might be “domestic terrorism.” The NSBA now admits there was “no justification for some of the language included in the letter,” which could have parents investigated under the Patriot Act for trying to influence what their children are taught.
The retraction comes after tremendous blowback. First came parents at school board meetings with T-shirts saying “Parents are not domestic terrorists.” Then 21 state school board associations distanced themselves from the letter. The Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania state associations cut ties altogether.
It turns out that when Chip Slaven, the NSBA interim executive director and CEO, and president Viola Garcia sent the letter, they did so without consulting their own board. But according to one of Mr. Slaven’s emails, they did work with White House staff.
The NSBA has owned up to its mistake, but what about the Biden Administration? Days after the NSBA letter was sent, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to intervene—without spelling out the federal authority or hard evidence for what the AG called a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence.”
Mr. Garland’s infamous memo made clear that senior officials at the department should prioritize such investigations:
I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.
Yet in a House Judiciary committee hearing last year, the attorney general took great pains to reject the idea that the country’s counterterrorism machinery would now be turned against protesting parents. Here are excerpts of his remarks from the committee’s transcript:
…I want to be clear, the Justice Department supports and defends the First Amendment right of parents to complain as vociferously as they wish about the education of their children, about the curriculum taught in the schools. That is not what the memorandum is about at all, nor does it use the words domestic terrorism or Patriot Act. Like you, 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.
… I do not believe that parents who testify, speak, argue with, complain about school boards and schools should be classified as domestic terrorists or any kind of criminals…. I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards, for whatever reason, constitute domestic terrorism. It’s not even a close question.
Then the Journal’s Sadie Gurman and Aruna Viswanatha reported in November:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has set up a process to track threats against school-board members and teachers, moving to implement a Justice Department directive that some law-enforcement officials and Republican lawmakers say could improperly target parents protesting local education policies.
The heads of the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions instructed agents in an Oct. 20 memo to flag all assessments and investigations into potentially criminal threats, harassment and intimidation of educators with a “threat tag,” which the officials said would allow them to evaluate the scope of the problem.
The internal email asks FBI agents to consider the motivation behind any criminal activity and whether it potentially violates federal law. Agents should tag such threats “EDUOFFICIALS” to better track them, according to the memo, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
“The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level, and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement partners at all levels,” says the email signed by Timothy Langan, the FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism, and Calvin Shivers, the assistant director of the bureau’s criminal division, who retired this month.
The fact that the counterterrorism chief was leading the effort seems like fairly good evidence that Justice was treating the issue as if it involved counterterrorism.
Now Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R., La.) write in a letter to Attorney General Garland:
We have learned from brave whistleblowers that the FBI has opened investigations with the EDUOFFICIALS threat tag in almost every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings. The information we have received shows how, as a direct result of your directive, federal law enforcement is using counterterrorism resources to investigate protected First Amendment activity. For example:
• In one investigation begun following your directive, the FBI’s [redacted] Field Office interviewed a mom for allegedly telling a local school board “we are coming for you.” The complaint, which came into the FBI through the National Threat Operations Center snitch-line, alleged that the mom was a threat because she belonged to a “right wing mom’s group” known as “Moms for Liberty” and because she “is a gun owner.” When an FBI agent interviewed the mom, she told the agent that she was upset about the school board’s mask mandates and that her statement was a warning that her organization would seek to replace the school board with new members through the electoral process.
• The FBI’s [redacted] Field Office opened an investigation, subsequent to your directive, into a dad opposed to mask mandates. The complaint came in through the National Threat Operations Center snitch-line and alleged that the dad “fit the profile of an insurrectionist” because he “rails against the government,” “believes all conspiracy theories,” and “has a lot of guns and threatens to use them.” When an FBI agent interviewed the complainant, the complainant admitted they had “no specific information or observations of . . . any crimes or threats,” but they contacted the FBI after learning the Justice Department had a website “to submit tips to the FBI in regards to any concerning behavior directed toward school boards.”
• In another case initiated after your directive, the FBI’s [redacted] Field Office opened an investigation into Republican state elected officials over allegations from a state Democratic party official that the Republicans “incited violence” by expressing public displeasure with school districts’ vaccine mandates. This complaint also came into the FBI through the National Threat Operations Center snitch-line.
…You have subjected these moms and dads to the opening of an FBI investigation about them, the establishment of an FBI case file that includes their political views, and the application of a “threat tag” to their names as a direct result of their exercise of their fundamental constitutional right to speak and advocate for their children… Although FBI agents ultimately—and rightly—determined that these cases did not implicate federal criminal statutes, the agents still exerted their limited time and resources investigating these complaints.
Even beyond the question of Mr. Garland’s candor in his testimony to Congress, is there any way to look at this re-engineering of Justice priorities as anything other than partisan, ideological and threatening to liberty?
This column may have to make it an annual habit to express gratitude to the man who kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court.
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