GOP lawmaker renews calls for Garland to withdraw ‘unjustified’ school board memo

A freshman Republican lawmaker is renewing calls for Attorney General Merrick Garland to withdraw a memo aimed at combating alleged violence against school teachers, pointing to testimony from other Biden administration officials that indicate its language was “unjustified.”

In a letter sent to Garland on Monday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) pressed the attorney general to “immediately rescind” the school board memo that was issued nearly two years ago, reiterating previous claims from GOP lawmakers that the directive unfairly targeted conservative parents. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly demanded Garland repeal the memo since its publication, but Garland has refused to do so.

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“Director Wray left no doubt that this memo was entirely without justification,” Kiley wrote. “Based on the lack of evidence to support the action you took … and the fact that even the requesting organization with which the Biden administration had direct communication has walked back their allegations, I am calling on you to immediately rescind the directive.”

Garland issued the memo in October 2021, ordering federal agencies to meet with local law enforcement officials to discuss a “disturbing trend” of threats against school officials over issues such as COVID-19 policies and school curricula. The memo came after a request from the National School Boards Association for the Justice Department to address such threats.

However, the NSBA later apologized for its request to the Biden administration, noting “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

House Republicans later opened an investigation into the memo shortly after taking control of the lower chamber in January, releasing a report in March that found there was “no legitimate basis” for the directive. Instead, GOP lawmakers argued the memo was released for political purposes.

Kiley specifically cited recent testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray in front of lawmakers last month, during which the top government official conceded there was no “compelling evidence” for Garland’s memo.

“This committee’s investigation concluded that the Justice Department’s own documents demonstrated there was no compelling justification for the attorney general’s directive,” Kiley said during the July 12 testimony. “Do you have any reason to dispute that conclusion?”

“No,” Wray responded.

Garland has previously defended the memo, telling Senate lawmakers earlier this year he would not rescind the letter because it was “aimed at violence and threats of violence against a whole host of school personnel.”

“It was not aimed at parents making complaints to their school board,” he said. “And it came in the context of a whole series of other kinds of violent threats and violence against other public officials.”

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Democrats have also defended the memo, dismissing House Republicans’ claims that the memo was politically motivated.

“Jim Jordan has cherry-picked a few sentences from hundreds of pages of documents to manufacture a book report on a debunked conspiracy theory,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said of the report. “As with all of his recent work, he has produced little or no new evidence to support his claims.”