Weaponization Working Group Releases Report on Garland Memo That Chilled Parental Rights and Warned Parents Could Be Domestic Terrorists (UPDATED)

United States Department of Justice  

"From this vantage point, America, which predominantly does not adhere to these beliefs, is the realm of the wrong path, the infidel way. That worldview is what underlies statements such as the claim that America "deserved" 9/11"

"Records show Biden White House and Justice Department leadership pushed for a memo that sought to find a federal “hook” to prosecute parents and charge protestors with federal crimes, despite widespread concerns from attorneys and agents

"Today, the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group issued a report detailing how Biden Administration officials at the Department of Justice explored avenues to prosecute parents and protestors who spoke to school boards and school officials during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Today’s report focuses on the production and circulation of an October 4, 2021 memorandum sent from Attorney General Merrick Garland to the Director of the FBI, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, the Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and United States Attorneys.

"On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14147 to eliminate the political weaponization of federal agencies. To many Americans, Attorney General Garland’s memo embodied the misuse and weaponization of government power. This report fulfills the February 2, 2025 directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi to review the Memo and the report ordered by the President in EO 14147.

"The report details how, despite being presented with very little evidence of actual violence or violent threats against school administrators and at school board meetings, Garland arrived at a memo which claimed, “in recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence.”

"The Working Group’s report makes clear that the ideological inspiration for the October 4, 2021 memo was a September 29, 2021 letter from the National School Boards Association to President Joe Biden in which the organization urged the federal government to consider that “these heinous actions” “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

"The Working Group officially acknowledges what many Americans already assumed: that as Biden Administration actions chilled the exercise of parental and free speech rights, parents who lawfully exercised their parental rights and freedom of speech were often targeted by members of the educational establishment." . . .   More.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy.

UPDATE: When political opponents become existential threats, violence can begin to look like virtue.   . . . "For years Americans have been told that Donald Trump isn’t merely a bad president or a politician with bad ideas. He has been compared repeatedly to Adolf Hitler and his rhetoric to that of Nazi Germany, as in this example from The Atlantic.

"The Biden campaign even published a 2023 graphic titled “TRUMP PARROTS HITLER.” Democratic politicians and political organizations have made similar comparisons, and Kamala Harris publicly agreed during the 2024 campaign that Trump could be described as a fascist.

"Those are not ordinary political insults.

Hitler isn’t remembered as a German politician with whom reasonable people merely disagreed over fiscal policy. He represents one of history’s great embodiments of evil, responsible for a regime that murdered millions.

"That distinction matters." . . .