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U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has called on Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, to resign in a Senate hearing where he delivered a barrage of evidence about Garland’s agenda against America’s parents.
“You have weaponized” the federal government against those parents, who appear at school board meetings to protest leftist, transgender and extreme climate change ideologies, Hawley charged.
“Your U.S. attorneys are cataloging all the ways they might prosecute parents … I call on you to resign.”
Hawley cited Garland’s own memo that appears to threaten parents, telling prosecutors to watch out for anyone who may be in opposition to the leftist agendas in many school districts, if they say one word out of line.
WND has reported that the federal government did, in fact, open multiple investigations into parents.
It was a report in the Washington Examiner that revealed those investigations sometimes involved no more than parents who had raised various concerns about masks, the leftist propaganda of “Critical Race Theory,” the transgender ideologies being promoted, and other issues.
CRT teaches that America at its foundation was racist, and the only way to counter that is to adopt more racist policies today.
The background is that Biden’s education secretary, Miguel Cardona, last year asked the National School Boards Association to send a letter to Garland insisting on investigations of parents Cardona disliked.
The NSBA did that, demanding investigations of parents under the Patriot Act intended to deter terror, and Garland ordered the FBI and the Department of Justice to set up a task force to “investigate threats” against schools or school board members.
Public shock at the action, however, prompted the association within days to apologize for sending the letter, and it was withdrawn as many state school boards associations dropped out of the national group, withholding their dues payments.
Despite the foundation for the scheme being withdrawn, Garland charged ahead, insisting that his commands still were relevant.
Later a letter from House members including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., revealed how far astray Garland went.
“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,” they told Garland.
The Examiner explained, “The representatives said the information shared by ‘brave whistle blowers’ indicated that the FBI had opened investigations under a previously disclosed ‘threat tag’ that categorized reported threats in ‘almost every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings.'”
At the hearing, Hawley pointed out that the NASB, which issued the letter that had been assembled with recommendations from the White House, withdrew it, but Garland never withdrew his agenda, which was based on the letter.
Hawley charged that while Garland claimed to be focused on “violence,” the DOJ in fact has assembled a list of 13 “crimes” that could be used against parents, to include “making annoying phone calls.”
Hawley charged that the intent of the agenda was to intimidate America’s parents.
Garland said he hadn’t seen the list because he doesn’t get “every memo” in his department, even though Hawley pointed out that he is, in fact, responsible for the entire operations.
“All I can conclude is you’re not in control of your own department, [but] more likely you knew full well this is exactly the kind of thing that would happen,” Hawley charged.
“You knew that federal pros would start collecting crimes they could use against parents,” Hawley said.
Garland’s actions last fall were targeted by a federal civil rights lawsuit that charged he “effectively” criminalized public criticism of local school boards by parents.
He’s accused of violating the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The action was brought by the American Freedom Law Center in U.S. District Court in Washington on behalf of a group of parents from Saline, Michigan, and Loudoun County, Virginia.
AFLC Senior Counsel Robert Muise said, “The government is without authority to criminalize First Amendment activity that might cause another to feel ‘harassed’ or ‘intimidated,’ even if that is what the speaker intended, absent a showing that the speech itself falls within one of the very narrow, recognized exceptions, such as making a ‘true threat’ or engaging in ‘fighting words’ or ‘incitement’—which is not happening here.”
Garland’s political stunt against parents also was roundly condemned by prominent legal commentator Alan Dershowitz.
“When dealing with protests, the Justice Department must be clear that the First Amendment fully protects all forms of protest, including raucous and unpleasant ones, and that generalized threats and nonviolent intimidation do not overcome this constitutional protection. Protesters must specifically threaten immediate violence against specific individuals. The Supreme Court has upheld vague, generalized advocacy of violence as protected by the First Amendment,” he wrote at the Gatestone Institute.
“The Garland memo fails to draw the appropriate First Amendment line and suggests that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can appropriately investigate and ‘discourage’ generalized threats and ‘efforts to intimidate’ public officials. While the First Amendment errs on the side of protecting such wrongheaded protests, the Garland memo errs on the side of investigating and possibly prosecuting them.”
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