Biden-Harris administration officials created a plan to use a letter from a third party source as a “pretext for federal action,” and stakeholders and officials discussed federal responses to school board protests, according to a new joint report from the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) and Parents Defending Education (PDE).
The report details how the Biden-Harris administration collaborated with the National School Board Administration (NSBA) and the Department of Education to target parents who protested at school board meetings.
/1 Three years ago today Attorney General Garland issued a memo weaponizing the entire DOJ against parents for speaking out at school board meetings.
With @DefendingEd we created a detailed timeline and are revealing shocking new details and context about the weaponized DOJ.🧵 pic.twitter.com/RwtkMWdAE3
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) October 4, 2024
The NSBA and the White House created a plan for the trade association to request that the federal government investigate parents under the Patriot Act, according to the report. The White House was collaborating with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to execute the NSBA’s request at the same time, AFL reported.
On Sept. 14, 2021, a Domestic Policy Council member (Jane Doe 1) and a White House staff official discussed with Biden-Harris stakeholders about federal actions regarding the school board meetings, according to the report. Stakeholders also had discussions with senior DOJ members, including at least one Civil Rights Division political appointee (Jane Doe 2).
During those meetings, Biden-Harris officials including Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 made a plan to use a letter from an outside source “as a pretext for federal action,” according to the report. Around this time, the DOJ was working on drafting the Garland Memo, despite concerns from DOJ staffers, AFL noted.
The Caller reached out to the DOJ and White House but at the time of publication has not heard back.
PRESS RELEASE: Parents Defending Education and @America1stLegal Release Report with New Details on Three-Year Anniversary of the Infamous AG Garland October 4th Memo Targeting American Parents and Exposing the Biden-Harris Administration’s War on Parents pic.twitter.com/3xO9knAoD7
— Parents Defending Education (@DefendingEd) October 4, 2024
The “War On Parents” report was released Friday, Oct. 4 – the three-year anniversary of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo, which included a tip line for people to report “threats of violence” at school board meetings to the FBI.
Garland directed U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the FBI, and law enforcement leaders to “discuss strategies” to address the protests, according to the memo. The sessions would “open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response by law enforcement.”
The “War On Parent’s” timeline includes a summary of results from AFL and PDE’s investigations.
It details how the DOJ and Department of Education coordinated a response to the NSBA letter sent to President Biden, according to an AFL press release. The report also reveals a DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney admitted the memo was a response to protests against Covid-19 policies and critical race theory.
The attorney, Renee Wohlenhaus, told colleagues in an email that the memo was responding to requests for assistance “in addressing threats of violence made against school board members and other officials over COVID policies and critical race theory,” according to the report.
.@HawleyMO: If this [Garland memo] isn’t a deliberate attempt to chill parents from showing up at school board meetings… I don’t know what is.
…You’re using the FBI to intervene in school board meetings. pic.twitter.com/RT1f1mrwBL
— Abigail Jackson 🇺🇸 (@abigailmarone) October 5, 2021
“In 2021, parents across America began exercising their Constitutional rights to hold their local school boards accountable for their policies and conduct during the pandemic,” AFL Senior Advisor Ian Prior stated in a press release. “From keeping schools closed to demanding that children adopt without question radical political ideologies on race and gender, parents rightly challenged their elected officials and local school bureaucrats to focus on education, not controversial social experiments with children as guinea pigs.”
He added that the memo is an example of the Biden-Harris administration’s “weaponization of federal power.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) opened up an investigation into reports sent to the memos tip-line, there has not been a single prosecution, according to the report. Despite the lack of prosecutions, the memo was never retracted, and no apology has been issued, according to AFL.
“Three years ago, agents who were justifiably unhappy about the quality of their children’s education began to use their voices and resources to demand better,” Parents Defending Education President and Founder Nicki Neily stated, adding that the DOJ’s directive was never rescinded.