FBI internal correspondence provides evidence that federal law enforcement used counterterrorism tools to target parents opposing such “educational” policies as CRT, masking, and LGBT-related propaganda in schools, which means that Attorney General Merrick Garland could have lied under oath to Congress some weeks ago when testifying on the issue.
The bureau e-mail provided by an anonymous whistleblower in the Biden administration to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee revealed Tuesday that the FBI had created a system to track threats against school-board officials and administrators.
The e-mail, signed by Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Timothy Langan and former Criminal Division Assistant Director Calvin Shivers, reads:
The Counterterrorism and Criminal divisions created a threat tag, EDUOFFICIALS, to track instances of related threats…. 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.
The e-mail says the move was made in response to the attorney general’s memorandum issued on October 4, in which he expressed the Department’s commitment “to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats [to the school boards’ and schools’ officials], identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”
Partnership Among Federal State Local Tribal And Territorial Law Enforcement To Address Threats Against School Administrators Board Members Teachers And Staff 0 0The disclosed FBI e-mail is dated October 20, a day before Garland testified to the Judiciary Committee that he could not “imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor … a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorists.”
Quoting the DOJ press release on the memo, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), asked Garland during the hearings about the involvement of the National Security Division into the task force which was ordered to “to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel,” to which Garland did not provide any direct answer.
In the light of the whistleblower’s disclosures, Jordan wrote to Garland,
This disclosure provides specific evidence that federal law enforcement operationalized counterterrorism tools at the behest of a left-wing special interest group against concerned parents. We know from public reporting that the National School Boards Association coordinated with the White House prior to sending a letter dated September 29 to President Biden labeling parents as domestic terrorists and urging the Justice Department to use federal tools — including the Patriot Act — to target parents.
Here, Jordan referred to the leaked e-mail exchange between the NSBA, which sent a letter to President Biden on September 29 urging him to treat parents who dare to speak up against the school boards’ policies as “domestic terrorists,” and the White House. The e-mails suggest the NSBA consulted with the Biden administration when drafting the letter that resulted in a prompt response from the Department of Justice.
Jordan’s letter further reads that, consequently, the NSBA disavowed its September letter, expressing “regret” and “apologies” for sending it. Despite that, the Attorney General has “stubbornly refused” to rescind its memorandum that, according to Garland’s own testimony, was based on the “evidence” of “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials” cited in the NSBA letter.
The letter closes,
This new information calls into question the accuracy and completeness of your sworn testimony….
If … you were aware of the FBI’s actions at the time of your testimony, this evidence shows that you willfully misled the Committee about the nature and extent of the Department’s use of federal counterterrorism tools to target concerned parents at school board meetings.
The general perjury statute says it is a federal crime to lie to Congress under oath, punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.
Speaking with the Fox News, Jordan said that either Garland lied to Congress or didn’t know about the developments in the FBI — “Either one is bad for the country, bad for justice in America.” He added, “As we speak the FBI is — not maybe, is — treating parents as a terrorist threat. And the attorney general came in front of the committee and said just the opposite.”
Garland should be invited back to Capitol Hill by the oversight panel to explain the FBI Counterterrorism and Criminal divisions targeting parents, the lawmaker insisted.
The same message was voiced by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who said Garland must answer for the allegations before the Congress. Howley said,
Garland said “oh, no, we would never treat them like domestic terrorists” — of course that’s what left wing groups wanted. Garland said “we are not going to do that” — [but] now we know the counter-terrorism division has been tracking parents.
In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, the FBI said that it “has never been in the business of investigating parents who speak out or policing speech at school board meetings, and we are not going to start now.” It described a “threat tag” as a tool to collect statistics and track information about a range of issues, including drug and human-trafficking cases.
