Lawmakers' Letter to Garland on Parents Is Pure Gold
We’ve reported how Attorney General Merrick Garland was grilled by Congress over his controversial memo ordering federal authorities to look into alleged “threats” against school boards. Critics called it an effort to go after parents for objections to the politicized agenda in the schools, like Critical Race Theory.
When Garland was grilled about what he based his decision to initiate federal action upon, he said he relied upon a memo from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) which called parents potential domestic terrorists and asked about employing the Patriot Act against them. But the letter was seriously lacking in actual violent incidents or showing any rationale for federal intervention. Most of the incidents were not violent and involved protected free speech. The NSBA later apologized for the letter and retracted it. Yet Garland is not backing off his effort. When lawmakers grilled Garland, they asked him what actual data he was relying on for his decision beyond the NSBA letter. But he couldn’t provide anything beyond saying there were news reports and basically admitted that he hadn’t verified the data before proceeding.
So the lawmakers gave him a Nov. 1 deadline to provide the data upon which he relied to them. The letter that they sent to Garland asking for the data is pure gold.
“Pursuant to this commitment,” the letter said, citing Garland’s agreement to turn over information, “please provide all evidence you personally used or relied on between Wednesday, September 29, 20201, and Monday, October 4, 2021 – other than the content of the NSBA letter dated Wednesday, September 29, 2021 – that formed the basis for the memo issued by the DOJ dated Monday, October 4th that addressed ‘…harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
The senators said they specifically chose Nov. 1 as the deadline because it was exactly five days after the hearing.
“Because you were able to distill your evidence and craft a memo that fixed the gaze of the FBI directly on concerned parents across this country in just four days, you should be able to share that evidence with us in the same period of time,” the letter said.
The request was signed by Sens. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Kennedy, R-La.,
Now that’s hilarious, but so true. As we all know, nothing in government happens fast. Except, apparently, when the Biden administration wants to go after parents because of their criticism of turning schools into indoctrination centers. Then it seems to happen at rocket speed. As we noted, the Biden White House was also involved in the letter, asking them to add more violent incidents in it. Apparently, there weren’t enough so they couldn’t.
Garland promised the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would provide the information.
But now, the DOJ has failed to do so by the deadline and they have failed to respond to a Fox inquiry as to why they haven’t provided the information.
One has to conclude that it’s hard to provide things that don’t exist and that if he provides false information to Congress, it will go even worse for him.
But it’s incredibly troubling that anyone would begin a federal effort of such magnitude requiring coordination with school boards without actual data to back it up. Not to mention troubling that you would have a federal effort looking into parents who are voicing their opinions on behalf of their children.