Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
GOP Hits Back at AG Garland’s Weaponization of FBI Against Parents Good and Hard
Surely Attorney General Merrick Garland knows his authoritarian order to sic the FBI on parents who object to the teaching of critical race theory to their children and forced mask mandates was wrong. Obviously, he acted at the request of the President. Still, a man who has spent his entire career in law knows this is government overreach.
In a letter sent to President Joe Biden last week, the National School Board Association wrote:
We ask that the federal government investigate, intercept, and prevent the current threats and acts of violence against our 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.
…
As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.
On Monday, Garland sprung into action. Citing “an increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members, teachers, and workers in our nation’s public schools,” he directed the FBI and U.S. attorney offices to mobilize against parents who oppose the inclusion of critical race theory in their children’s public school curriculum. Garland’s memorandum can be viewed here. I posted on the NSBA’s request here and Garland’s mealy-mouthed response here.
The few parents attending school board meetings who cross the line from exercising their right to protest into intimidation of school board members can easily be dealt with by local law enforcement officers. This administration wants the FBI to get involved for political reasons which is why they call concerned parents “domestic terrorists.”
One of my Ricochet readers informed me the NSBA included the “protection of interstate commerce” as a reason for seeking federal assistance because this would grant the federal government authority over a local issue.
The response from the right to Garland’s perversion of justice came back at him good and hard – and fast. How could it not? The attorney general doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on in this case.
The National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney, called this action a “lawless threat.” He wrote:
Attorney Merrick Garland knows this is dangerous nonsense. … I personally know that he knows it. He was a high-ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department, which gave me a very hard time — though it ultimately relented — when I proposed charging a notorious terrorist with soliciting acts of violence and seditious conspiracy.
We had elaborate evidence, much of it in the form of recorded statements, showing that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman believed himself to be in a forcible war against the United States, that his followers had carried out and plotted terrorist attacks, and that he had personally called for both bombings of American military installations and the murder of Egypt’s then-president.
Garland well knows, as he and Clinton officials stressed to me nearly 30 years ago, that in the incitement context, the First Amendment protects speech unless it unambiguously calls for the use of force that the speaker clearly intends, under circumstances in which the likelihood of violence is real and imminent. Even actual “threats of violence” are not actionable unless they meet this high threshold.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Garland “is weaponizing the DOJ by using the FBI to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation.”
In a statement to Fox News, DeSantis’ Press Secretary Christina Pushaw said the governor would “protect the rights of Floridians from government overreach and the inappropriate politicization of federal law enforcement.”
The statement continued:
Several Florida school board members, including Democrats and Republicans, have reported receiving threats and harassment from activists on both ends of the political spectrum. This is wrong, and anyone who is a victim of a crime should report it to their local police department. Florida law enforcement is perfectly capable of responding to crimes in Florida, and we have never heard the FBI suggest otherwise.
However, disagreement is not harassment. Protest is not terrorism, unless it involves rioting, looting, and assault, like some of the left-wing protests of summer 2020. Again, all of those actions are crimes in Florida and will be prosecuted, regardless of political context. Governor DeSantis condemns any attempt by the federal government to silence free speech. It is despicable and anti-American.
In an appearance on Fox & Friends, Bill Bennett, who served as an Education Secretary during the Reagan Administration, prefaced his remarks, as everyone did, by saying no one should be intimidated or attacked.
“But this criticism of school board members is entirely appropriate,” he said. “We should have more of it. This is the Empire strikes back.”
“To use the power of the FBI to suggest that parents should shut up, which is really what they’re saying here, and let the schools do whatever they want to do, this notion that parents should not have the major say in the education of their children – this is what’s at stake right now,” Bennett argued.
“They’re saying this is terrorism, when parents speak up against board members. No, this is overkill and it will not go down well and it shouldn’t go down well.”
Bennett said he had spoken to a mother recently who had pulled all of her children out of public schools. The students were being asked questions like, ‘What gender do you want to be today? What gender do you want to be next week?’
“Rather than curse the darkness, we should be lighting a candle,” he said. Bennett and a group of other like-minded individuals are currently putting together U.S. history courses for 8th- and 11th-grade students (history is a nationwide requirement for those grades) to teach them an accurate version of our history, rather than the distorted 1619 version.
I’m delighted that a growing number of parents are pushing back against the indoctrination of American children. They represent the future of America and if we intend to right this ship that has veered so far off in the wrong direction, this is where we need to press our thumbs.
And I’m with Bill Bennett on this one. We need to see more of it.
Please follow me on Twitter.
Published in Politics
Is it illegal when a law enforcement official engages in enforcement actions without jurisdiction? Could Florida take legal action against FBI agents who engage in improper enforcement under the scenario outlined in the OP?
So they’ve issued strongly worded statements, as they always do. Big fat hairy deal. What are they going to do? How do they plan to stop Merrick and the FBI?
Get back to me when you have that answer.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see some government lawyers practice some real law?
Your headline says “GOP hits back . . . good and hard.”
I see: a pundit . . . Ron DeSantis . . . Bill Bennett . . . but where is this “GOP hits back . . . good and hard” you mention.
Not seeing it.
It would be nice if they did.
Here’s some hitting back.
But it’s still not hard enough.
I want to see Merrick Garland cry like a little baby.
Note that there has been no newsworthy violent event, no murders or riots. Just angry people at school board meetings which is far from unprecedented. So why would the USAG even bother?
The DOJ Civil Rights Division under Obama became his ideological Pretorian Guard and under Biden the entire DOJ apparently sees its mission as protecting the revolution –critical race theory, gender-bending sex ed, and outlawing dissident speech. Imagine Facebook and YouTube bots coming to life and silencing speech and acts out in the offline world and that is apparently how Garland sees his role.
Ah . . . now it makes sense:
We are not asking GOP politicians to be the first to speak out. You don’t have to be that courageous, just follow DeSantis’ lead.
Instead we get crickets.
Don’t we have some governors and AG’s who should be objecting to the Merrick’s action?
VERY GOOD QUESTION!!
Will the GOP wake up in time to realize that if all their donors are shipped off to re-education camps they’ll eventually run out of that sweet, sweet campaign cash? Don’t bet on it.
Speaking of which, whenever the GOP calls me begging for cash, I really give them an earful.
Unfortunately, half the time it turns out that I’m giving an earful to a robot.
They really should try employing humans.
What struck me on this was that this is a continuation of the politicization of the FBI that was under Obama. Perhaps this time around Republicans and the right will be quicker on the ball to fight it. This must be stopped. The politicization of government agencies, especially crime fighting agencies, is caustic to social fabric. This is third world stuff.
LOL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Of course they won’t. The “norms” crowd would find it just too declassé to fight. They’ll frown and write some NR columns, and then they’ll spend the weekend at the Hamptons with the very people who oppress us.
We were slow in figuring this out and recognizing we were being taken for a ride.
Who’s this “we” you’re talking about?
Me, myself, and I.
They would have to retreat to their safe place, have some hot cocoa and hug their teddy bear; they would have no idea how to deal with actual, working, battle-tested, experience-hardened trial lawyers. They make me sick, if you will excuse a little harsh language.
That said, to answer your question: Hell, yes!
How are parents supposed to fight this? The process is the punishment.
The federal government has UNLIMITED resources to harass and intimidate and investigate and sue and doxx and taint individuals and groups they don’t favor. The Capitol Police apparently has full and complete authority to kill on sight. By the same token, the federal government has UNLIMITED resources to protect and shield leftist mobs, ANTIFA, and other miscreants.
Two tier justice is no justice at all. Equality under the law used to be a hallmark of the American way. Now it’s a passé footnote in the civics books that haven’t been edited or destroyed by the Ministry of Truth.
Take their kids out of the schools. Then the boards and teachers etc have no say.
Making token calls about sanctuary cities for First Amendment would be easy.
I hope so. The FBI agents or whoever should be locked up if they try to interfere with election audits, and they should be locked up if they try to interfere with this.
One of the things we must do is cease just marking down who you vote for on school board elections, and spend time actually researching the candidate’s positions if you can. These elections are notoriously “Non-Parisian” and if you believe that, I have a lot of bridges and tunnels to sell you. The extremist left controls the majority of school boards even in highly conservative areas, and obfuscate and outright lie on their position papers, secure that only 1 or 2 in a hundred voters will ever read them let alone research the lies, so the favorite of the teacher’s unions or leftist minorities get elected and control the curriculum, and who is appointed to supervisory positions. Without starting to understand and elect conservatives to these boards wherever we can, we are lost.
“All politics is local.”
So, here’s some of that hitting back that we were promised.
DeSantis Orders Biden to Keep His Federal School Board Cops Out of Florida
Wouldn’t it be great if other Republicans were like this?
The headline is not quite what the linked article says, but close! But again, how does DeSantis plan to stop this? What tools does he (and other governors) have that will work? That’s missing from the article.
What are you saying, that a governor needs to have state-controlled F-16s and nukes to keep FBI agents out of the local schools? Seems to me having state police arrest and jail the FBI provocateurs would do the job.
Well, I would prefer it if they actually, you know, said that on the record. Rather than keeping things vague.
Why reveal your detailed strategy to the enemy?
Because in this case, it comes across as the usual GOP gum-flapping.