EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Biden Administration’s
use of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources against parents voicing concerns
about controversial curricula and education-related policies at local school board meetings. This
oversight began in October 2021 following the issuance of a memorandum from Attorney
General Merrick Garland directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and all U.S. Attorney’s
Offices—among other Department components—to examine and address threats posed by
parents at school board meetings.
Although the Biden Administration declined to cooperate with this oversight in the 117th
Congress, whistleblower disclosures and a report commissioned by the National School Boards
Association (NSBA) shed some light on how the Biden Administration colluded with the NSBA
to create a justification to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources against
parents. There were gaps in the information available to the Committee then, primarily because
the Biden administration did not participate in the NSBA’s third-party report. On February 3,
2023, Chairman Jordan subpoenaed the Justice Department, FBI, and Education Department for
documents necessary to advance the Committee’s oversight and inform potential legislative
reforms.
From the initial set of material produced in response to the subpoenas, it is apparent that
the Biden Administration misused federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources for
political purposes. The Justice Department’s own documents demonstrate that there was no
compelling nationwide law-enforcement justification for the Attorney General’s directive or the
Department components’ execution thereof.
1 After surveying local law enforcement, U.S.
Attorney’s offices around the country reported back to Main Justice that there was no legitimate
law-enforcement basis for the Attorney General’s directive to use federal law-enforcement and
counterterrorism resources to investigate school board-related threats. For example:
• One U.S. Attorney reported that “this issue was very poorly received” by his local law
enforcement community and “described by some as a manufactured issue.”2 He
continued: “No one I spoke with in law enforcement seemed to think that there is a
serious national threat directed at school boards, which gave the impression that our
priorities are misapplied.”3
• Another U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that the local FBI field office in the area “did
not see any imminent threats to school boards or their members . . . , nor did they
ascertain any worrisome trends in that regard.”4
• Local law-enforcement officials noted that local officials should properly respond to
school board threats. In Montana, several law-enforcement offices rightly advised the
Justice Department that “local law enforcement authorities are best suited to address
criminal threats against school board administrators.”5
• Most threats reported back to Main Justice had little connection to school board matters.
For example, the Southern District of Alabama reported that although one of the school
board member’s houses was shot at, the incident was the “unfortunate consequence of
gun violence in the city” and not related to school board decisions or policies.6
The documents received pursuant to the Committee’s subpoena show the absence of a
legitimate nationwide basis for the Attorney General’s directive to insert federal law enforcement
into local school board matters. The documents also shed light onto how the Administration
worked with education special interests to generate the predicate for the Attorney General’s
directive. It appears, from these documents and the information received previously, that the
Administration’s actions were a political offensive meant to quell swelling discord over
controversial education curricula and unpopular school board decisions. The Attorney General’s
directive came just weeks before a pivotal gubernatorial election in Virginia, in which education
policies were hotly debated and a local school board’s actions were under intense scrutiny.
7 The inference from the initial tranche of subpoenaed documents is that the Justice Department’s
actions were a reaction to these political circumstances rather than a legitimate law-enforcement
response to any serious, nationwide threat.
In response to the Committee’s subpoena, the FBI acknowledged for the first time that it
opened 25 “Guardian assessments” of school board threats, and that six of these investigations
were run by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.
8 These admissions supplement whistleblower
disclosures about the FBI’s actions, including disclosures the FBI investigated a mom because
she belonged to a “right-wing mom’s group” and “is a gun owner” and a dad because “he rails
against the government.” According to the FBI, none of the school board-related investigations
have resulted in federal arrests or charges, highlighting the political motives behind the Attorney
General’s actions. The Administration’s goal seems to have been silencing the critics of its
radical education policies and neutralizing an issue that was threatening Democrat Party
prospects in the close gubernatorial race in Virginia.
This weaponization of law-enforcement powers against American parents exercising their
First Amendment rights is dangerous. The Justice Department subjected 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. The
Committee has called on Attorney General Garland to rescind his memorandum, which he has refused to do.
From the documents and information received pursuant to the subpoena, it is crystal clear that Attorney General Garland should rescind his unwise and unsupported directive to insert federal law enforcement into local school board matters.
The House Committee on the Judiciary, through and with its Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government, is charged with investigating “violations of the civil
liberties of citizens of the United States.”9 This interim staff report fulfills the ongoing obligation
to identify and report on instances of the weaponization of the federal government—here, the
misuse of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources against parents exercising
their First Amendment rights at school board meetings. While the documents produced to date
help to better understand what transpired, they do not tell the whole story. The Committee and
the Select Subcommittee will continue to pursue the relevant facts to inform legislative reforms
to protect American civil liberties.
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Originally Posted by GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged
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