After FBI Whistleblower Revelations, Merrick Garland Faces Serious Accusations

President Biden’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is trying to target parents. They are now utilizing the resources of the federal government to go after parents for vigorously defending their children at local school board meetings. Essentially, the FBI is investigating parents with the same resources they would use to investigate crimes like drug offenses and human trafficking.Show more

A controversial memo was put out by Attorney General Merrick Garland that launched an effort to create a task force to address threats to local school board officials. When AG Garland testified about this memo, he ensured Congress that the FBI was not targeting parents or limiting free speech when it came to investigating school board episodes. However, a day before AG Garland testified, a Justice Department memo stated that the criminal investigative division and the counterterrorism division would be responsible for tracking instances of threats, and now this disturbing memo has come to light through a whistleblower.

Also in the memo, the FBI created a “threat tag” to mark instances of this type of “harassment.” The three determination questions to assess a threat were indicated as – is there a federal nexus? Are there potential federal violations that can be investigated and charged? What is the motivation behind the criminal activity? This memo was signed by the heads of the criminal division and counter terrorism division that directly contradicted AG Garland’s testimony. So, did he lie? Was he unaware of what was happening in his own department?

Attorney General Garland testified before Congress that there’s no way this would happen:

"The Justice Department supports and defends the First Amendment right of parents to complain as vociferously as they wish about the education of their children, about the curriculum taught in schools. That is not what the memorandum is about at all, nor does it use the word “domestic terrorism” or “Patriot Act.” I cannot imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children. Nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorists."

Well, the counterterrorism and criminal investigative divisions are doing exactly that. ACLJ Chief Counsel and my dad Jay Sekulow put in simple terms what this means:

"We have seen this scenario before. . . . Let me tell you what that all means. That is the same thing that the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the SEC did when Lois Lerner sent out that email that said, if we could find one thing to charge here, then we can really do something. Can we find one charge against one of these groups? That will shut them down. That’s exactly what the FBI and the Department of Justice are doing here. Except it’s parents at a school board meeting. If there was harassment and problems at a school board meeting, you know what you can do? You can call the local police. But to turn it onto the counterterrorism unit of the Federal Bureau Investigation to handle local parents at a local school board meeting is not only ridiculous, I think it is illegal. . . . And I think frankly they are putting parents in jeopardy. What are they going to do start getting warrants, subpoenas? . . . You’re going to turn that into a federal counterterrorism investigation. How about get the bad guys?"

Senator Lindsey Graham explained the danger of this on Fox News:

"If you go to a school board and you get unruly, you’ve got local law enforcement to deal with you. So, here’s what bothers me – what jurisdiction hook does the FBI claim to start following school board meetings? I can’t think of a federal jurisdictional issue here. So, this is crazy. If the FBI can just reach out and start tracking parents at the school board, they are overstepping their boundaries. They are limited in terms of their charter."

Former counterterrorism director, Peter Strzok was forced to try to defend this tracking of parents in an MSNBC interview:

"The first thing is . . . people need to step back. Who in their right mind would oppose law enforcement looking into threats of violence against teachers?"

No one is opposed to local and state law enforcement looking into actual violence against local teachers. Why do you need federal resources to do this?

Angry, passionate parents who care about their children and their education and want to make sure that their local schools and school boards are doing what’s best for their children are NOT terrorists. They are NOT a threat. And parents who are exercising their constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances – even aggressively and vigorously – should not have to wonder if the feds are spying on them.

ACLJ Director of Policy Harry Hutchison explained exactly why:

"For political reasons. The Biden Administration is not shy about using the weight of the federal government to target its political opponents. So, I think at the end of the day, there is a fundamental mistake that the Justice Department and the Biden Administration has made, and that is to deploy its resources to go after political opponents in a representative or democracy or republic. So if you look though at the individuals who are targeted, these are individuals who oppose the progressive play book. . . . At the end of the day, the Biden Administration is willing to put its interests ahead of the interest of the American people."

We are not willing to let the Biden Administration put their interests ahead of the American people. Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to come back to Congress and answer why he made this inaccurate statement – and Congress needs to hold him accountable. We already have a team of lawyers working to get to the bottom of this, and we’ll go to court if necessary to stop it.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of a new Department of Justice memo that reveals the FBI treating parents like terrorists.