The potential indictment of former president Donald Trump by a New York grand jury is one glaring example of left-leaning office holders misusing their authority by attacking an individual, Trump supporters say.
If political opponents can attack a president they can attack anyone, it’s often said. The investigation by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) appears to support that claim.
Johnson’s group, which met last week, is looking into alleged actions against Virginia parents by the U.S. Justice Department in the fall of 2021.
“It’s an inescapable conclusion that when the attorney general issued this now infamous memo back on Oct. 4 in 2021, he deployed the entire apparatus of the Department of Justice, the US Attorney’s office, the FBI field offices, etcetera to go after parents,” said Johnson, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
Johnson told American Family Radio’s Jenna in the Morning on Tuesday that the memo coincided with a close Virginia governor’s race between eventual Republican winner Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Education policies – such as gender identity and critical race theory -- were among the campaign’s hottest topics.
Johnson said that Garland issued a memo along with the National School Boards Association to insert law enforcement into local school board meetings.
If Johnson’s interpretation is correct, these Virginia parents, with the right access codes, could read about their school board appearances, and perhaps more, in FBI files.
“They actually created a threat tag in our counterterrorism resources at the FBI to do this. They began to investigate and begin files on these parents. This is unconscionable,” Johnson said.
Garland defended the memo before Senate Republicans later that October when he said it was a response to “concerns about violence, threats of violence, other criminal conduct.”
The memo, he said, asked federal law enforcement to meet with local law enforcement to assess the situation and consider what may be necessary for federal assistance.
In previous stories, however, AFN has pointed to an October 2021 DOJ announcement that the powerful federal agency was forming a "task force," with numerous departments and divisions within the DOJ, to crack down on disruptive attendees at school board meetings.
According to Garland, the Department of Justice acted after the NSBA wrote to President Joe Biden and complained of harassment and disruption in school board meetings in Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Nevada.
It was later learned, however, the White House knew the letter was coming because White House officials had collaborated with the NSBA president on the content on the letter for weeks, Fox News reported.
“The Justice Department, what they did here, it looks like a reaction to those political circumstances rather than a legitimate law enforcement response. There was no serious nation-wide threat, no violence being perpetrated against school boards as they tried to imply. The evidence shows this was a political exercise, the most dangerous thing that we can think of is that you would use the Department of Justice for political purposes,” Johnson said. “It undermines the very system of justice that we have, and it’s one of the big reasons why people are losing their faith in our institutions themselves. It’s a really, really scary time. We’ve got to get on top of this and reverse this trend.”
There has been no known federal prosecution of a parent or caretaker since the Garland memo, but there has been the threat of prosecution.
Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms For Liberty, spoke at the House hearing where she testified one of her Moms chapters had been contacted by federal authorities.
Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government, the group’s website says.
Johnson describes a three-step plan
Without a Senate Majority, Johnson’s panel may have limited impact, but it does have three main assets in its effort to combat abuse of government resources, he said.
First is bringing abuse to light.
”The investigation power, the oversight power is a very important thing. We clearly lay out the undisputed facts for the American people to evaluate for themselves,” he said.
Second is putting the findings into action.
“We use that as a guide to craft legislation to reform this process to ensure that it’s never allowed to happen again,” Johnson said.
The third could be the most meaningful.
“We have the power of the purse of course. We will have to use that probably to ensure that federal agencies are never again allowed to abuse and use the precious treasure of tax payers against those tax payers themselves. So some of these agencies may have to have some of their funding adjusted – I say that diplomatically – as a way of coercing this behavior.”
Johnson said some civil actions could result from the subcommittee’s proceedings.
“We’re having these hearings to present this evidence in a steady and methodical way ultimately to lead to real solutions. We have to have accountability, and we have to have reform, and we’re very serious about the task before us,” he said.
