Weaponization panel blasts DOJ 'anti-parent' memo, says no legal basis for it

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim staff report Monday deriding the Department of Justice's issuance of a so-called "anti-parent" memo ordering law enforcement to monitor the events of school board meetings.

At issue is an October 2021 memo that Attorney General Merrick Garland issued to the FBI and the offices of U.S. Attorneys directing them to explore the threat that parents at school board meetings might pose.

The report derided the memo as baseless and asserted that "[f]rom the initial set of material produced in response to the subpoenas, it is apparent that the Biden Administration misused federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources for political purposes."

In early March, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan issued subpoenas in relation to the October 2021 memo to former interim Executive Director and CEO of the National School Boards Association Chip Slaven and National Assessment Governing Board Trustee Viola Garcia.

Thus far in the investigation, the panel determined that "[t]he Justice Department’s own documents demonstrate that there was no compelling nationwide law-enforcement justification for the Attorney General’s directive or the Department components’ execution thereof."

The report included reports from U.S. Attorney's offices made to the national DOJ indicating that the order lacked a strong basis.

"After surveying local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country reported back to Main Justice that there was no legitimate law-enforcement basis for the Attorney General’s directive to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources to investigate school board-related threats," the panel wrote.

"It appears, from these documents and the information received previously, that the Administration’s actions were a political offensive meant to quell swelling discord over controversial education curricula and unpopular school board decisions," they declared, noting that the directive was released in the final weeks of a contentious Virginia gubernatorial race in which now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin ultimately triumphed over his Democratic opponent after campaigning heavily on education issues.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.