FBI Targeted Parents Critical of School COVID Mandates as Potential ‘Threats’: Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers cite examples of the FBI investigating conservative parents, including a father for simply appearing ‘insurrectionist.’

By Joseph Summers
Global Research, May 13, 2022
LifeSiteNews 12 May 2022
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The Biden Administration used the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) counterterrorism resources to investigate conservative parents and Republican politicians, according to whistleblowers cited in a congressional letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday. 

The letter, sent to Garland by Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson, cites evidence provided to Congress by whistleblowers showing that the FBI launched dozens of investigations into parents for criticizing school COVID policies. The whistleblowers provided the evidence as part of an investigation into the application of Garland’s October memo to the FBI instructing them to treat conservative parents as “domestic terrorists.” 

Garland issued the memo following a letter from the National School Board Association (NSBA), which asked the Biden administration to target parents who attended school board meetings in opposition to curricula and school district COVID policies. Subsequently released emails showedthat the administration worked in tandem with the NSBA to come up with the policy that would be found in Garland’s memo. 

An email obtained by the House Judiciary Committee in November from the Counterterrorism and Criminal Division of the FBI showed that the bureau used the tag EDUOFFICIALS to monitor threats against education officials nationwide, a tag which whistleblowers claim was used to launch investigations into parents. 

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Source: @realchrisrufo/Twitter

According to the letter, “These cases include investigations into parents upset about mask mandates and state elected officials who publicly voiced opposition to vaccine mandates. These investigations into concerned parents are the direct result of, and could not have occurred but for, [the] directive to federal law enforcement to target these categories of people.” 

Examples mentioned in the letter include a mother investigated for allegedly telling a school board member “we are coming for you.” The mother was reported for belonging to the conservative group “Moms for Liberty” and for owning a gun.  

Another example cited shows that the FBI interviewed a father who opposed mask mandates because someone reported that he looked like an “insurrectionist” and “rails against the government.” It was also claimed that he owned “a lot of guns and threatens to use them.” The person that made the claim against the father later admitted that there was “no specific information or observations of … any crimes or threats.” 

A third example shows that a local Democratic Party official claimed that a Republican politician “incited violence” by opposing a school district’s jab policy. 

“You have subjected these moms and dads to the opening of an FBI investigation about them, the establishment of an FBI case file that includes their political views, and the application of a ‘threat tag’ to their names as a direct result of their exercise of their fundamental constitutional right to speak and advocate for their children,” the letter states.  

“This whistleblower information raises serious concerns that your October 4 memorandum will chill protected First Amendment activity as parents will rightfully fear that their passionate advocacy for their children could result in a visit from federal law enforcement.” 

Garland, testifying before Congress in October, said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had not deployed antiterrorism tools against parents protesting COVID policy. “I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children,” Garland said, “nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism.”  

The DOJ did not immediately respond to LifeSite’s request for comment.

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Featured image: Garland is sworn in as Attorney General in March 2021. (Licensed under Public Domain)
Articles by: Joseph Summers

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