Lawsuit aims to uncover details of controversial DOJ memo targeting parents
WASHINGTON (TND) — Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice, seeking records on the federal response to contentious school board meetings that were taking place around the country last year.
The group filed the lawsuit after it says the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to respond to an Oct. 6 FOIA request. The lawsuit seeks records relating to any action taken by the FBI in response to a memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland instructing federal law enforcement to clamp down on “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators,” amid the contentious meetings.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, and other critics, argue Garland’s instruction was politically motivated and targeted parents standing in opposition to critical race theory being taught in their children’s classrooms.
“The Biden administration wants to target parents as ‘terrorists’ by abusing the FBI and DOJ to intimidate parents who oppose the racist and anti-American Critical Race Theory agenda,” said Fitton. “And now Judicial Watch had to file a federal FOIA lawsuit because the agencies are in cover-up mode over this shocking abuse of power.”
It was later revealed by Garland that prior to issuing his instruction, the DOJ and White House communicated about a later-withdrawn National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter, which described parental actions in the school board meetings as “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” Emails from the NSBA show its board was not consulted before the letter was sent to the White House, nonprofit Parents Defending Education found. Parents Defending Education also uncovered emails showing the NSBA was in touch with the White House ahead of publishing its letter, and that White House staff requested specific information be included in the final letter before it was sent.
The Attorney General testified that he had not worked on the DOJ memo until after the NSBA letter arrived at the White House,” stated North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in a news release.
Judicial Watch is seeking “all records related to any actions planned or taken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in response to the [DOJ] memorandum, as well as all related records of communication between any official or employee of the FBI and any other individual or entity,” Judicial Watch wrote in a news release about the lawsuit.
The NSBA later issued an apology for its controversial letter to President Joe Biden. “On behalf of the NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter. To be clear, the safety of school board members, other public school officials and educators, and students is our top priority, and there remains important work to be done on this issue,” the NSBA wrote. “However, 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 said in spite of the apology it “does not change the association’s concern about violence and threats of violence,” according to The Washington Examiner. He added that “it alters some of the language in the letter, language that we did not rely on and language which we did not rely on in my own memorandum.”
