Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding he answer questions about whistleblower documents showing the FBI is using its counterterrorism division to investigate and add “threat tags” to parents who speak out at school board meetings.
“Nearly every week, we discover new information that undermines your assertion that you are not using the FBI to target parents who wish to speak up in response to school boards that are pushing divisive ideologies like critical race theory or other highly controversial measures,” wrote Senator Hawley. “I am calling for the Judiciary Committee to expeditiously schedule a hearing so you can answer these questions.”
In a separate letter to Chairman Durbin (D-Ill.), Senator Hawley requested a Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Department of Justice to address the whistleblower documents as well as why officials in the Department are threatening to prosecute parents under a law that was long ago repealed.
“Yesterday, a whistleblower revealed that the FBI has created an internal “threat tag” to track parents who speak up at school board meetings. The email was dated October 20, before Attorney General Garland testified to the Judiciary Committee. Yet at the hearing, Attorney General Garland told the committee that counterterrorism tools would not be used to track parents. Now we know such tracking is already underway,” wrote Senator Hawley.
He continued, “When he testified, the Attorney General insisted that he never took any action to chill the free speech of parents. The actions of his department undermine that assertion and raise the alarming prospect that the Attorney General was lying or is not in control of his own department.”
Senator Hawley previously asked Garland to withdraw his October 4th memo directing the FBI to involve itself with local school board meetings, which has led federal prosecutors to threaten to prosecute parents under laws that were repealed long ago, and has called for his resignation.
Earlier this week Senator Hawley introduced legislation to defend parents’ role in education with a new Parents’ Bill of Rights. On Fox News last night, Senator Hawley discussed the whistleblower documents and called for Garland to address them under oath.