Attorney General Merrick Garland basically admitted Thursday that the White House contacted the Justice Department about that odious letter from the National School Boards Association begging the feds to use the Patriot Act against “domestic terrorist” parents who raise questions about critical race theory being pushed in their kids’ schools.
This is outrageous, even though Garland fudged on whether it was at the White House’s behest that he issued his remarkable public guidance. He told federal prosecutors and the FBI to actively investigate threats or violence against school officials and/or boards, a dramatic display of intimidation.
There’s every reason to think it was the White House’s idea: Garland acted just days after the president’s office got the letter, which the NSBA’s top two leaders actually sent at the request of President Joe Biden’s aides after prior discussions on the issue.
After all, this is the same White House that ordered the Centers for Disease Control to let teachers-union boss Randi Weingarten dictate parts of their guidance on school masking. And that has embraced mandatory CRT training all across the federal government, including in the military.
Nor does the attorney general normally make a high-profile public announcement that he’s ordering his minions to get on top of a purely imaginary danger.
And never mind that the NSBA’s own board was furious about the letter, which the CEO and president sent out without getting board members’ feedback first.
Nor that the only real violence cited in the letter involved a dad who lost his temper when the Loudoun County, Va., board refused to address his daughter’s claim (backed up by evidence) that she was raped by a trans person in her school bathroom.
No matter, either, that Garland now scoffs at the letter’s references to “domestic terrorists” and the Patriot Act: He actually cited the letter in his guidance.
Actually, all of that does matter: It gets to just how obscene this whole thing is — and not just the goings-on in Washington.
