The Biden administration’s effort to combat alleged threats against school boards amid a wave of heated parent protests triggered sustained internal resistance within the Justice Department and FBI, documents released by the DOJ show.
“Five years ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an infamous memorandum at the urging of the National School Boards Association and White House officials, directing the FBI and United States Attorneys to consider looking for a federal hook to prosecute parents exercising their right to free speech,” Blanche posted to X on Monday, when the DOJ released the “Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools.”
“Along with the report, we’ve released hundreds of exhibits and emails that make official and verify what many Americans had guessed: the Garland DOJ worked hand in hand with WH officials and the National School Boards Association to chill free speech and parental rights while they threatened to prosecute parents and label them domestic terrorists,” Blanche added.
In October 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to coordinate with federal, state and local law enforcement over what it described as an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools,” amid escalating clashes involving parents at school board meetings.
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Garland’s memo drew significant internal pushback across the Justice Department and FBI, with officials raising concerns about politicization, First Amendment protections and whether there was a sufficient federal basis for intervention, according to the Justice Department report released Monday.
The memo followed throngs of parents protesting at school board meetings over dissatisfaction with how gender and race were being taught in classrooms and COVID-19-era learning restrictions, prompting the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to appeal to then-President Joe Biden for federal assistance and warn that some actions surrounding the protests “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Some of the internal messages detailed in the Justice Department’s report released Monday had been disclosed previously and reported on by Fox News Digital. In one message sent before Garland’s memo went public on Oct. 4, 2021, a deputy assistant attorney general said the operation — and proposals to link it to the DOJ’s election crimes work — looked so politically motivated that Garland “might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.” The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section chief, meanwhile, called the proposal “stupid.”
An FBI counterterrorism official later raised concerns about the label “domestic terrorist” potentially being applied to everyone who “oppose school board actions,” while a DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney noted that much of the activity in question could be protected under the parents’ First Amendment rights.
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Multiple DOJ officials noted that the problem at hand appeared to fall primarily within the jurisdiction of state and local authorities and questioned whether there was a sufficient federal basis to intervene, according to the report.
Internal dissent over the effort continued as the memo was implemented following its Oct. 4, 2021, release and during the resulting fallout.
On Oct. 5, 2021, an FBI lawyer claimed that the DOJ issued the press release accompanying the memo without coordinating with the bureau. The Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, the agency’s largest operational division, stated that “we were all caught off guard by this announcement,” which was “unilaterally pushed by DOJ.”
As the DOJ began assembling its task force, objections persisted.
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The Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s National Security Division stated that he didn’t “see the need for a task force like this” and that the Justice Department doesn’t “start a narrowly focused task force every time some group believes they are the subject of threat.”
Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security circulated a brief linking the threat level facing educational workers as tied to heightened opposition to masks, vaccines and critical race theory. An FBI counterterrorism official slammed the threat assessment guidelines as a “politically charged paper,” expressing his desire that the FBI not collaborate.
NSBA ultimately apologized for the language used in its letter to then-President Joe Biden seeking federal assistance, including action by the Justice Department and FBI.
“The obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials,” he said of the memo.
Some school board officials did receive online and written threats in 2021, a fact supporters of Garland’s approach cited in defending the Justice Department’s response.
Arnold & Porter, the law firm where Garland now serves as a partner, did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Monday.