The head of a parents’ organization— consisting primarily of worried moms– that was supposedly targeted by US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s FBI stated Garland himself is “the terrorist.” Mamas for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice informed the Daily Caller she was concerned investigations into the group’s members might “intimate our moms” in a piece published Friday.
The remarks came 2 days after House Republicans stated they’d discovered smoking-gun proof the FBI was examining moms and dads’ groups that had actually participated in demonstrations at school board conferences, regardless of Garland’s protestations to the contrary.
The letter to the Department of Justice, authored by Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and signed by other Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, kept in mind the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division had actually produced a hazard tag for examinations into moms and dads’ groups– EDUOFFICIALS.
“We have learned from brave whistleblowers that the FBI has opened investigations with the EDUOFFICIALS threat tag in almost every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings,” the letter noted.
“The information we have received shows how, as a direct result of your directive, federal law enforcement is using counterterrorism resources to investigate protected First Amendment activity.”
BREAKING: The Biden Administration has mobilized FBI counterterrorism resources to investigate parents, including at least one member of @Moms4Liberty, for expressing protected political speech at local school board meetings.
This is a grave abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/MdK0vm51VN
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 12, 2022
Garland had actually come under fire after Oct. 4, 2021 memo directed the FBI to check out “threats” against school workers.
The memo followed a wave of adult demonstrations and controversial school board conferences– especially in Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia– over crucial race theory in the class.
“In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools,” the memo read.
“The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”
During testimony later that month, Garland firmly insisted the regulation just included “concerns about violence, threats of violence, other criminal conduct.”
That does not appear to be the case. The House Judiciary Committee’s letter notes the FBI spoke with a Moms for Liberty member after an examination that started when a tip submitted to the bureau through the National Threat Operations Center hotline, claimed that she had informed a regional school board “we are coming for you.”
The informant stated the mom was a risk due to the fact that she became part of a “right-wing mom’s group” and “is a gun owner.”
Jordan then kept in mind that when the FBI spoke with the mother, they found she just indicated Moms for Liberty looked for “to replace the school board with new members through the electoral process” because of their position on mask mandates.
BREAKING: The Biden Administration has mobilized FBI counterterrorism resources to investigate parents, including at least one member of @Moms4Liberty, for expressing protected political speech at local school board meetings.
This is a grave abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/MdK0vm51VN
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 12, 2022
Justice informed the Daily Caller that she was “sad to see” the FBI examinations “happening to people that care most about this country.”
The moms who appear at school board conferences, she stated, were “genuinely concerned about their children’s education” — however, Garland’s DOJ sees them as “the enemy.”
“This should not be happening and we are going to do everything we can to ensure that it stops,” she told the Daily Caller.
In a statement, ustice and her fellow Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich stated this was “proof of what many of us suspected and some of us knew: that the Department of Justice was using counter-terrorism authority under the PATRIOT Act to investigate parents of schoolchildren.
“We at Moms for Liberty knew first hand of the first example Jim Jordan cited, because she was – as the whistleblower letter says – one of our members,” the statement read.
“The mother was terrified. She had been contacted by the FBI. She had been told by the FBI not to say anything about that call. She had also been told that there were many other mothers being investigated.”
The letter was more verification of what Garland has actually strenuously denied before congress: that FBI resources are being utilized to deal with moms and dads as prospective domestic terror suspects with no particular threat.
FROM THE WHISTLEBLOWER: pic.twitter.com/4IfJRPVKMk
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) November 16, 2021
The House Judiciary GOP had actually currently blown the whistle on the EDUOFFICIAL tag last November. We now have an approximation of how promiscuously it’s being used and how little hazard there in fact is.
While no ominous, violent, reactionary hazard versus school boards has, since yet, been revealed, we now have reliable reports of the FBI bugging a member of a conservative moms’ group based off of a cardboard-flimsy reasoning.
When Garland’s memo was released, it appeared clear the FBI was being weaponized versus a prevalent moms and dads’ revolt in which entirely reasonable anger was being let loose– in a constitutionally secured way– versus school boards that were embracing woke ideology or extending mask mandates beyond sensible limitations. This anger caused, to name a few things, a Republican sweep of statewide workplaces in off-year elections in significantly blue Virginia, including for Governor.
Maybe when Garland was speaking about examining “threats,” he wasn’t discussing any danger to the wellness of school-board members or academic workers. Rather, it had to do with the Democrats’ 2022 electoral possibilities.
