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Newly released Justice Department emails show senior officials objected to a 2021 Merrick Garland directive on threats against school officials, with one warning it could damage election-threats work and appear politically driven.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly released Justice Department emails show internal alarm over then-Attorney General Merrick Garland’s 2021 directive responding to alleged threats against school board members, teachers and public school employees.
The emails, reported by Fox News, indicate that some high-ranking Justice Department officials objected to the memo before it was issued and warned that the effort could appear political.
Garland’s October 2021 memo came after parents across the country confronted school boards over COVID-era school restrictions and classroom instruction involving race and gender. The National School Boards Association had appealed to the Justice Department for assistance, saying some actions by angry parents could amount to “domestic terrorism.”
The Justice Department then issued a memo directing coordination in response to what it described as an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools.”
But internal emails show officials inside the department questioned both the wisdom of the move and whether the Justice Department had a proper federal role in the matter.
“I don’t think it’s possible to state how strongly I object to this. It will completely and totally nuke our election threats efforts, and will damage the reputation of the Public Integrity Section into the bargain,” one deputy assistant attorney general wrote in an internal email chain. “It’s like they’ve affirmatively trying to make this thing not work and look political.”
“If they do this, they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force,” the official continued.
The chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section responded, “Exactly!” and added, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Other officials raised concerns about whether the proposed approach had a sufficient connection to federal authority or to the department’s Public Integrity Section.
“We will not do this,” one principal deputy assistant attorney general wrote. “There is no conceivable connection to [public integrity] (indeed, I’m not seeing a federal interest of any kind.). And if they’re going to make the AG’s memo to the field about this and election threats, I’m going to strongly recommend that they not send it.”
The Public Integrity Section chief also warned that the memo could effectively turn the Justice Department and the FBI into the “threat police” and said it contained “no limiting principle at all.”
The Garland memo drew immediate criticism from Republican lawmakers, state officials, commentators and parents’ groups who said the federal government was treating dissenting parents as a law enforcement concern.
The National School Boards Association later apologized for the letter it sent to the Biden administration.
“On behalf of NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter,” the organization wrote in a memo to its members. “There was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance. We apologize also for the strain and stress this situation has caused you and your organizations.”
Garland was later urged to withdraw the memo or apologize for it, but he defended the directive.
“The obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials,” Garland said of the memo.
The Justice Department and Garland did not respond to requests for comment, according to Fox News.
The emails add new detail to the internal dispute surrounding one of the Biden-era Justice Department’s most controversial directives, showing that objections came not only from outside critics but also from officials inside the department before the policy became public.
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