Compromised Attorney General Should Resign? DOJ investigates parents for “domestic terror” threats protesting indoctrination
Senators are outraged that Attorney General’s son in law makes money off of teaching the indoctrinating Woke agenda at schools, to which parents object.
As a background, parents have been labeled as “domestic terrorists” for making alleged threats to School Board Members for indoctrinating their children, rather than sticking to an education curriculum.
The letter to the Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary: :
The Honorable Merrick Garland Attorney General of the United States United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530
Attorney General Garland:
October 8, 2021
On October 4, you issued a memorandum directing the Federal Bureau of Investigations (“FBI”) and United States Attorneys’ Offices to address purported harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members.1 Actual violence, harassment, and threats are criminal activities and must be condemned.
Yet your directive to the FBI runs a serious risk of conflating legitimate and meritorious protest by concerned parents with criminal conduct. The memorandum implies that parents who protest school boards, including those who oppose the inclusion of critical race theory in elementary, junior high, and high school curricula, may pose a public safety threat. In doing so, the memorandum appears intended to intimidate parents across the country into silence.
As a matter of policy, this memorandum is extraordinarily concerning, which is why we joined Senator Grassley’s letter on behalf of the 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in writing to you about this policy. Equally concerning, however, is reporting about an alleged connection between your family members and controversial curricula that will directly benefit from this memorandum and the chilling of speech.2
Your daughter, Rebecca Garland, married Alexander (“Xan”) Newman Tanner in 2018.3 Mr. Tanner is a co-founder of Panorama Education (“Panorama”), a “social learning” provider that provides consultancy services that reportedly aids schools in teaching critical race theory under the guise of “equity and inclusion” to America’s children.4
According to the Daily Wire, Panorama holds contracts with at least 22 school districts across the country, which have paid Panorama a combined $12 million in recent years.5
These reports outline allegations that parents and advocacy groups have recently raised about Panorama’s contracts, curriculum, data collection practices, and student surveys. In early September, Parents Defending Education (PDE) released an article detailing parents’ concerns about data collection and student surveys implemented in Fairfax County, Virginia, under the local school district’s contract with Panorama.6 On September 29, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden administration raising complaints about parents’ protests at school board meetings.7 Then, less than a week later, you issued the memorandum, which will benefit companies like Panorama, whose contracts may be in jeopardy as parents stand up to school boards and demand that their children not be indoctrinated with critical race theory.8
According to the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) Conflict of Interest Policy, “An employee may not participate, without authorization, in a particular matter having specific parties that could affect the financial interests of members of her household.”9 This policy is to prevent both actual conflicts of interests, as well as the appearance of a conflict of interest. In light of the allegations that your son-in-law’s company may benefit directly from your memorandum, we request that you respond to the following questions no later than October 21, 2021:
• Does your son-in-law, Xan Tanner, currently work for Panorama? If not, when did he leave Panorama’s employ?
• Has Panorama provided any consulting services to DOJ since January 20, 2021, or is Panorama under contract to provide any consulting services to DOJ in the future?
• Has Panorama provided consulting services or curriculum to any federal agency?
• Has there been any communication between Panorama and DOJ since January 20, 2021?
• Has any school district, teachers’ union, or other trade organization contacted DOJ
regarding Panorama since January 20, 2021?
• Have any school districts that hold or have held a contract with Panorama contacted DOJ
regarding Panorama since January 20, 2021?
• Did you seek advice from an ethics official or attorney regarding Panorama before issuing
the October 4, 2021 memoranda titled “Partnership Among Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Law Enforcement to Address Threats Against School Administrators, Board Members, Teachers, and Staff”?
Did you or your staff have any communications with the White House regarding this memorandum or any of the issues discussed therein prior to October 4?
The American people have a strong interest in ensuring that the Department of Justice is acting in their best interests, and not in the financial interest of its officials or their families.
Sincerely,
Ted Cruz Mike Lee
Member, Senate Judiciary Committee Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Marsha Blackburn
Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
BACKGROUND: According to a recent report from the 23 organizations, outraged at Biden’s political hack Department of Justice (DOJ)’s investigating frustrated parents ‘domestic terrorism’ fight back. According to the organizations representing parents, the School board does not want parental input into what their children learn or object to the Boards dictatorial mandates
“On behalf of our 427,000 members, the undersigned organizations write in response to your September 29th letter to President Biden requesting ‘federal assistance to stop threats and acts of violence’ against school board members, school officials, and teachers,” the letter beings.
The lash back:
“In a single day, the Biden administration said parents shouldn’t be the “primary stakeholder” in their children’s education and the National School Board Association asked the feds to crack down on anti-critical race theory protests as “domestic terrorism.” Christopher Rufo.
Law Enforcement Today weighs in:
Not gonna take it: 427,000+ parents fight back against National School Board Assoc calling them “domestic terrorists”
Posted by: Pat Droney
The following contains editorial content written by a retired Chief of Police and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.
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On the day after it was reported that tyrant Attorney General Merrick Garland further devolved into making the Department of Justice an arm of the Democratic Party, PJ Media reports that over 427,000 parents responded to the organization that got the DOJ involved in the first place—the National School Board Association (NSBA). To be clear, parents are not going to take this BS lying down.
Last week, Law Enforcement Today and other media outlets reported that the NSBA’s president Viola Garcia sent what can only be described, as PJ Media defined it, as a “hysterical and threatening letter” to the feckless Joe Biden in which she accused parents who are demanding accountability from public schools of threats, intimidation and…gasp…”hate crimes!” which she equated with “domestic terrorism.”
That’s correct…Garcia believes that parents who are concerned about what their children are being indoctrinated into in schools are engaged in domestic terrorism. In that letter, the NSBA requested the feds intervene “to stop threats and acts of violence against school board members, school officials and teachers.”
Well, just as the Luke Skywalker and gang used “the force” to fight back against the evil Empire, so too did a group of parents…in excess of 427,000 to be exact.
This week, the leaders of two dozen or so parent organizations fought back and blasted the NSBA with their own letter. In that letter, the groups slammed the NSBA’s ridiculous claims of “hate” and “terrorism.”
The letter stated, in part:
NSBA cites a tiny number of minor incidents in order to insinuate that parents who are criticizing and protesting the decisions of school boards are engaging in, or may be engaging in, “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” NSBA even invokes the PATRIOT Act.
The association of legitimate protest with terrorism and violence reveals both your contempt for parents and your unwillingness to understand and her the sincere cries of parents on behalf of their children. To equate parents with terrorists dishonors the thousands of victims of actual terrorism around the world. Have you no shame?
Bravo! Well said; we wish we’d said that ourselves.
The demand by the NSBA that the PATRIOT Act be used as a cudgel against law-abiding parents who have legitimate concerns over the education of their children is an outrage and in fact shows clearly that the parents are indeed on to something, and the NSBA is pissed off that the blush is off the rose.
In their letter, the parent organizations noted the “menacing” and “thinly veiled threat” posed by the NSBA’s request…no demand that Biden and the Department of Justice use federal law enforcement to harass and possibly prosecute parents for exercising their First Amendment rights, and the redress of grievances with their elected officials.
The letter continued that by their request of Biden, the NSBA “intended to intimidate into silence and submission the very constituents that [the NSBA] members ostensibly represent.”
Why else turn federal law enforcement agencies such as the DOJ, the FBI, Homeland Security, the Secret Service Assessment Center and the Postal Service on parents and taxpayers?
After Garland’s promise earlier Tuesday to use the DOJ to do exactly what the NSBA seemed to be asking for, isn’t it ironic that there was no such move to use the DOJ and federal resources to conduct actual law enforcement operations, such as working to solve the genocide of young blacks taking place in American cities throughout the U.S.
There is no federal probe into Black Lives Matter or Antifa, yet the Biden administration is not only willing but eager to go after parents concerned about their kids.
These are parent organizations by the way who “unequivocally oppose violence” and are not indeed “domestic terrorists,” but “concerned citizens who care deeply about their community’s children—and who are concerned by the direction that America’s schools have taken.”
As we have seen over the past six months or so, many parents across the country are rightfully concerned and in some cases angry about what is happening in taxpayer-funded public schools:
Citizens are angry that school boards and school officials around the country are restricting access to public meetings, limiting public comment, and in some cases conducting business via text messages in violation of state open meeting laws.
They are angry that schools are charging them thousands of dollars in public records requests to view curriculum and training materials that impact their children and that should be open to the public by default.
They are angry that pandemic-related learning losses have compounded the already-low reading, writing, and math proficiency rates in America’s schools.
The primary driver behind parents’ anger is that instead of actually working to improve students’ achievement, “large numbers of districts have chosen to fund, often with hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money, ‘social justice’ and ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ programs with finite resources.”
One might think that the NSBA might be interested in actually listening to parents’ concerns, however they simply do not care.
We have seen people from Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona suggest that elected bureaucrats and “educators” should be the ones making educational decisions for students, not parents, which is absurd.
Parents are rightly concerned that instead of addressing their concerns and listening to parents, the NSBA sought instead to “smear their constituents rather than engage with them in good faith.” Those concerns of course stem from leftist and some might say Marxist policies embraced and implemented by school boards who are supposed to be accountable to parents. Visit Lawnforce,not today for a deeper dive.
Justice Department Addresses Violent Threats Against School Officials and Teachers
Citing an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools, today Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response by law enforcement.
“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” wrote Attorney General Garland. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
According to the Attorney General’s memorandum, the Justice Department will launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel. Those efforts are expected to include the creation of a task force, consisting of representatives from the department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service and the Office of Justice Programs, to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes, and ways to assist state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.
The Justice Department will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and school administrators. This training will help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.
Threats of violence against school board members, officials, and workers in our nation’s public schools can be reported by the public to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) via its national tip line (1-800-CALL-FBI) and online through the FBI website (http://fbi.gov/tips). To ensure that threats are communicated to the appropriate authorities, NTOC will direct credible threats to FBI field offices, for coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and law enforcement partners as appropriate. Reporting threats of violence through NTOC will help the federal government identify increased threats in specific jurisdictions as well as coordinated widespread efforts to intimidate educators and education workers.
On Saturday, a letter signed by 23 organizations with over 427,000 combined members was sent to the National School Board Association to voice their strong opposition to the National School Board Association asking the Biden Administration too the in to investigate and take actions against unruly people deemed “threats.”
AG Letter:
National School Boards Association Asks for Federal Assistance to Stop Threats and Acts of Violence Against Public Education Leaders
Alexandria, Va., September 30, 2021In a letter to President Biden released this morning, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) has asked for federal assistance to stop threats and acts of violence against public schoolchildren, public school board members, and other public school district officials and educators.
“America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” reads the letter signed by NSBA President Viola M. Garcia and NSBA interim Executive Director and CEO Chip Slaven. “The National School Boards Association respectfully asks for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”
The letter asks the federal government to “investigate, intercept, and prevent the current threats and acts of violence against public school officials through existing statutes, executive authority, interagency and intergovernmental task forces, and other extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of our children and educators, to protect interstate commerce, and to preserve public school infrastructure and campuses.”
The letter cites more than twenty instances of threats, harassment, disruption, and acts of intimidation that have transpired during school board meetings and that are targeted at school officials. While local and state law enforcement agencies have worked hard to protect public school officials and restore order, some jurisdictions need assistance, especially around monitoring threat levels. To prevent further harm, NSBA asks that a joint effort be undertaken among federal law enforcement agencies, state and local law enforcement, and public school officials to focus on threats made during public school board meetings, via documented threats transmitted through the U.S. Postal Service, across social media and other online platforms, and around personal properties.
Specifically, NSBA asks that the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Secret Service and its National Threat Assessment Center focus their expertise and resources on the level of risk to public schoolchildren, educators, board members, facilities, and campuses. NSBA also requests that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service intervene against threatening letters and cyberbullying attacks that have been transmitted to students, school board members, district administrators, and other educators.
The letter underscores that local school board members want to hear from their communities on important issues and it acknowledges that such feedback is at the heart of good school board governance and promotion of free speech. It also notes, however, that there “must be safeguards in place to protect public schools and dedicated education leaders as they do their jobs.”
“As the threats grow and news of extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue,” the letter argues.
The letter comes of the heels of a joint statement issued last week by NSBA and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, calling for an end to threats and violence around safe school opening decisions.
Read NSBA’s complete letter to President Biden at
https://nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/nsba-letter-to-president-biden-concerning-threats-to-public-schools-and-school-board-members-92921.pdf.