The House Judiciary Committee under chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) issued a subpoena on Friday for FBI Director Christopher Wray, requiring that the chief hand over documents and correspondence involving the bureau’s “misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources” to politically persecute conservative parents at school board meetings across the country.
According to the subpoena, which was reviewed by Fox News Digital, Wray has no later than 9:00 a.m. on March 1 to comply.
Specifically, the subpoena compels Wray to hand over all documents related to meetings between the FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices that took place in line with an Oct. 4, 2021 memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland, in which the AG instructed the FBI to work together with U.S. attorneys and local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of determining which parents at school board meetings could be considered threats.
The memo even gave all agencies involved authority to “prosecute [the parents] when appropriate.”
The Judiciary Committee likewise subpoenaed Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for any documents in their possession also related to the targeting of parents.
Per the subpoena, Wray must provide lawmakers with all documents related to “both formal and informal recommendations” that were created or used by FBI personnel with regard to their meetings with U.S. attorneys, along with “all documents and communications referring or relating to the EDUOFFICIALS threat tag.”
The subpoena also specifies that the FBI must hand over “all documents and communications sent or received by the following individuals referring or relating to FBI investigations of school board threats: Carlton L. Peeples; Jay Greenberg; Calvin A. Shivers; Brian M. Cohen; Timothy R. Langan Jr.; and Kevin Vorndran.”
Fox News reports that the above names are of FBI agents who were on the initial “EDUOFFICIALS” email thread about school board meetings.
“As Director Wray and other FBI officials have stated clearly on numerous occasions before Congress and elsewhere, the FBI has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be. Our focus is and always will be on protecting people from violence and threats of violence,” said a spokesperson for the FBI to Fox. “We are fully committed to preserving and protecting First Amendment rights including the right to free speech.”
“Attempts to further any political narrative will not change those facts,” the spokesperson continued, adding that the FBI “recognizes the importance of congressional oversight and remains fully committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests consistent with its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. The FBI is actively working to respond to congressional requests for information — including voluntary production of documents.”
Since 2021, Jordan and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have been examining information from whistleblowers that the Biden administration “colluded with the National School Boards Association to manufacture a pretext for the use of federal law enforcement authorities against parents.” Now that the GOP controls the House, Jordan and his colleagues can pursue the investigation with the added advantage of subpoena power.
Fox News reports:
Whistleblowers told Jordan that the FBI labeled dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division to assess and track investigations related to school boards. One whistleblower told Jordan that the FBI opened investigations with the “EDUOFFICIALS” threat in every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings.
In one investigation, FBI officials interviewed a mom for allegedly telling a school board member “we are coming for you.” The person reported the mother because she belonged to a “right wing mom’s group” called “Moms for Liberty” and because she is a gun owner. FBI officials eventually determined this mom was not a threat.
In a separate investigation, Jordan related that FBI agents interviewed a father who voiced his opposition to compulsory face masks in schools. He was reported because he was considered to look like an “insurrectionist” who “rails against the government” and “has a lot of guns and threatens to use them.” Yet whoever reported the father later acknowledged that they had “no specific information or observations of … any crimes or threats.”
Garland’s original memo on the subject directed the FBI to organize meetings with federal, state and local leaders in each district in order to “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.”
According to the memo, the FBI’s role would help “determine how federal enforcement can be used to prosecute these crimes.”
The memo was a response to a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to Garland in which the organization complained of disruptive behavior from some parents — for which the NSBA requested that the Justice Department use the Patriot Act and other federal tools typically reserved for dealing with terrorism.
But in a second letter, NSBA apologized for the first, saying “there was no justification for some of the language.”
The White House fired back at Jordan, characterizing the actions of the committee as “extreme.”
Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight, said:
Chairman Jordan is rushing to fire off subpoenas only two days after the Judiciary Committee organized, even though agencies already responded in good faith seeking to accommodate requests he made. These subpoenas make crystal clear that extreme House Republicans have no interest in working together with the Biden Administration on behalf of the American people — and every interest in staging political stunts.
Is Democrats’ indignation the result of the realization that the tables have turned, and they are now subject to the congressional probes they weaponized against conservatives for years?
