WH PLAYED LIKE A PUPPET
Did school org. pull strings vs. ‘terror’ parents?
Newly released e-mails show coordination between a national school-board group and the Biden administration, raising questions about whether the White House ordered Attorney General Merrick Garland to sic the FBI on parents who protested at meetings across the United States.
The e-mails, obtained through a public-records request by the group Parents Defending Education and first reported by The Washington Free Beacon, show a back-and-forth leading to a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to President Biden that labeled parent protesters of such administration efforts as mask mandates and critical race theory as “domestic terrorism.”
Garland announced on Oct. 4 that the FBI would probe what he called “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school adminis- trators, board members, teachers and staff.”
Five days earlier, on Sept. 29, NSBA CEO Chip Slaven claimed in a letter to Biden, “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat” and suggested that “the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Slaven also asked the administration to “examine appropriate enforceable actions” under legislation including the post-9/11 Patriot Act.
On the same day he sent the letter, Slaven mentioned to members of the NSBA’s board of directors in an e-mail that “in talks over the last several weeks with White House staff, they requested additional information on some of the specific threats.”
Under questioning Thursday from House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Garland denied that the White House had spoken to him about the NSBA letter, but admitted, “I certainly would believe that the White House communicated its concerns about the letter to the Justice Department.”
When Jordan pressed Garland on whether he discussed his Oct. 4 memo with anyone at the White House, the AG answered: “I did not. I don’t know whether anyone discussed the memo. I am sure that the communication from the National Association of School Boards was discussed between the White House and the Justice Department and that’s perfectly appropriate.”
Jordan opened the hearing on a fiery note. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman, the chairman just said the Trump DOJ was political, went after their opponents. Are you kidding me?” Jordan said, referring to opening comments moments earlier from the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).
“Three weeks ago, the National School Boards Association writes President Biden asking him to involve the FBI in local school-board matters. Five days later, the attorney general of the United States does just that — does exactly what a political organization asked to be done. Five days,” Jordan emphasized.
“Republicans on this committee have sent the attorney general 13 letters in the last six months,” Jordan said. “Eight of the letters, we’ve got nothing — they just gave us the finger.”
Jordan went on to accuse Garland of creating a “snitch line on parents” with his memo and claimed that “folks all around the country, they tell me, for the first time, they are afraid of their government.”
“Where is the dedicated lines of communication on violent crime in our cities?” Jordan asked. “Violent crime went up in every major urban area where Democrats have defunded police. Can’t do that, [but] the Biden administration is gonna go after parents who object to some racist hate-America curriculum.”
Garland insisted that the Justice Department would not investigate parents who take issue with particular school-board policies.
“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,” he said. “That is not what the memorandum is about at all, nor does it use the words ‘domestic terrorism’ or ‘Patriot Act.’ ”
“I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children,” Garland added. “Nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism.”
Garland was also pressed on claims he has a conflict of interest on the issue due to his son-in-law’s involvement with a company, Panorama Education, which has been accused of supporting critical-racetheory curricula.
“This memorandum does not relate to the financial interests of anyone,” insisted Garland, who repeated throughout the hearing that the department was focused on tackling “threats of violence.”
The AG deflected or declined to answer many questions asked by Republican members of the committee regarding the memo and related cases — including a headlinegrabbing incident where a Virginia father was arrested after he showed up at a school-board meeting to complain that the alleged rape of his daughter by a 14-year-old boy was covered up by officials.
“This sounds like a state case and I’m not familiar with it,” Garland told Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) when questioned about the matter. “I’m sorry.”