Attorney General Merrick Garland is going forward with his campaign to investigate and possibly prosecute parents who oppose school mask mandates and hypersexual and racialist curricula, even though his justification for such legal action has fallen apart.
It’s the most American thing ever — refusing to back down even after the intelligence has proven to be bad.
Garland was asked Wednesday in a congressional hearing if he plans to go forward with the federal task force to investigate school board protesters. The attorney general answered in the affirmative. He has no plans to reverse course, he said, even though the catalyst for the task force, a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Boards Association written in collusion with the White House, has since been withdrawn by the school board group.
“I think all of us have seen these reports of violence and threats of violence — that is what the Justice Department is concerned about,” Garland told lawmakers, noting the “rising tide of violence.”
He added, “That’s the reason that we responded as quickly as we did when we got a letter indicating that there was violence and threats of violence with respect to school officials and school staff.”
In the same hearing Wednesday, Garland failed to cite a single “threat” or act of “violence” he believes requires a federal response.
In a Sept. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, the National School Boards Association petitioned the White House to deploy the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security to investigate incidents involving association members and angry parents. The letter argued anti-mask and anti-critical race theory protests at school board meetings are a form of “domestic terrorism” and suggested the White House consider using the USA PATRIOT Act against select parents and community activists.
The letter, it turns out, was an AstroTurf job. It was cooked up in coordination with White House staffers looking to justify federal involvement in a crackdown.
On Oct. 4, Garland announced the federal government would intervene on behalf of the board association. Later, during an Oct. 21 congressional hearing, the attorney general cited the letter specifically as justification for taking legal action against school board protesters.
However, on Oct. 22, after weeks of fierce criticism and pushback from even its own members, the National School Boards Association retracted its letter to the White House, apologizing for some of the language it used, most notably the part where it suggested the school protests could (and should) be classified as acts of “domestic terrorism.”
“We regret and apologize for the letter,” the group said. “There was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for some consultation on a communication of this significance.”
Garland remains unmoved.
The Department of Justice memo announcing legal action “responds to the concerns about violence, threats of violence, and other criminal conduct,” the attorney general reiterated at Wednesday’s hearing. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa pressed Garland to explain why he plans to keep the task force in place, despite the justification for its existence having since fallen apart.
“Presumably, you wrote the memo because of the letter,” the senator said. “The letter is disavowed now, so you’re going to keep your memo going anyway, right? That’s what you’re telling me?”
Garland responded, “I have the letter from NSBA that you’re referring to. It apologizes for language in the letter, but it continues its concern about the safety of school officials and school staff.”
He added, “The language in the letter which they disavow is language which was never included in my memo and never would’ve been. I did not adopt every concern that they had in their letter. I adopted only the concern about violence and threats of violence, and that hasn’t changed.”
If history has taught us anything, it’s that the federal government will wage this war against parents for roughly 20 years, ignoring all the while it’s predicated on bad intelligence, before considering withdrawal. And when it does eventually withdraw, it’ll be in the most chaotic fashion imaginable.
