We knew this was going to happen once Republicans took over part of government.
Originally published at WND News Center. Used with permission.
The federal government’s law enforcement resources have been weaponized in recent years against President Trump, against parents, against conservatives.
That agenda included the fabrication of the now-debunked 2016 “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory pursued by the FBI and the Department of Justice against Trump.
And conservatives have been painted as a threat to democracy itself, because they fail to adhere to the LGBT agenda and refused to accede to the ideology that says a man can use a girl’s locker room at a gym simply because he says he feels female.
On the topic of Garland’s war against parents, that fight now is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The American Freedom Law Center said it has filed its opening brief in the court in its lawsuit against Garland.
The case “challenges the attorney general’s political attack against parents who speak out at school board meetings against the indoctrination of their children by ‘woke’ school boards,” the organization confirmed.
The case is on behalf of parents from Loudoun County, Virginia, and Saline, Michigan.
“The Attorney General of the United States (‘AG’) has weaponized the vast law enforcement resources of the federal government to target parents, including Plaintiffs-Appellants (‘Plaintiffs’), and other private citizens who publicly oppose the progressive and immoral agenda being forced upon their children in various school districts across the country, specifically including the school districts in Loudoun County, Virginia, and Saline, Michigan. The AG has pejoratively designated these parents and private citizens as ‘threats’ and ‘domestic terrorists,’ deeming them worthy of investigation and surveillance by the federal government. This Orwellian policy violates plaintiffs’ fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution and federal statutory law,” the AFLC explained.
The development in the case coincides with the new GOP majority in Congress and its announcement to create a panel to investigate the “Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
In late 2021, Garland announced his scheme to use the FBI and federal prosecutors to “target” those parents “who dare to publicly criticize the local school boards that are indoctrinating their children with a harmful and radical left-wing agenda disguised as school curricula,” the AFLC said.
The basis, Garland said, was a letter from progressive members of the National School Boards Association, which called those parents “domestic terrorists.”
However, the letter itself was propaganda, as it had been “orchestrated” by the Biden administration, the AFLC said.
“Bear in mind, the federal government (DOJ and FBI) has no jurisdiction over local criminal matters. Consequently, it was important to characterize the parents as ‘domestic terrorists’ in order to get the jurisdictional hook,” the legal team explained.
So the FBI created a “threat” label to use in tracking and targeting parents, and that “weaponization,” according to the lawsuit, violates federal law.
WND previously reported that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called on Garland to quit, based on his weaponization of the government.
“You have weaponized” the federal government against those parents, who appear at school board meetings to protest leftist, transgender and extreme climate change ideologies, Hawley charged.
“”Your U.S. attorneys are cataloging all the ways they might prosecute parents … I call on you to resign.”
Hawley cited Garland’s own memo that appears to threaten parents, telling prosecutors to watch out for anyone who may be in opposition to the leftist agendas in many school districts, if they say one word out of line.
In fact, the government has investigated parents for challenge mask mandates, opposing the leftist propaganda of “Critical Race Theory,” transgender ideologies, and more.
Garland, in the case, is accused of violating the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
At the time, AFLC Senior Counsel Robert Muise said, “The government is without authority to criminalize First Amendment activity that might cause another to feel ‘harassed’ or ‘intimidated,’ even if that is what the speaker intended, absent a showing that the speech itself falls within one of the very narrow, recognized exceptions, such as making a ‘true threat’ or engaging in ‘fighting words’ or ‘incitement’—which is not happening here.”
Garland’s political stunt against parents also was roundly condemned by prominent legal commentator Alan Dershowitz.
“When dealing with protests, the Justice Department must be clear that the First Amendment fully protects all forms of protest, including raucous and unpleasant ones, and that generalized threats and nonviolent intimidation do not overcome this constitutional protection. Protesters must specifically threaten immediate violence against specific individuals. The Supreme Court has upheld vague, generalized advocacy of violence as protected by the First Amendment,” he wrote at the Gatestone Institute.
“The Garland memo fails to draw the appropriate First Amendment line and suggests that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can appropriately investigate and ‘discourage’ generalized threats and ‘efforts to intimidate’ public officials. While the First Amendment errs on the side of protecting such wrongheaded protests, the Garland memo errs on the side of investigating and possibly prosecuting them.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.