Report On Biden Lawfare Shows What Dems Will Do With Power

Sunday marked five years since then-Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum that instructed his Department of Justice (DOJ) to help investigate and prosecute parents who showed up at school board meetings to complain about far-left initiatives or Covid policies. Five years later we now know that the Biden White House was behind Garland’s effort to target parents, The Federalist’s Matt Kittle reported.

The anniversary and new finding also come on the heels of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress last week, in which his lawfare efforts to keep President Donald Trump out of office faced further scrutiny. With the midterms less than a month away, both instances serve to remind Americans of what Democrats will do with power given the chance: wage a lawfare campaign against their political opponents.

Parents Became Public Enemy No. 1

Back in September of 2021, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration asking it to take on the “immediate threat” that parents posed to their children’s schools. The “threat” stemmed from parents who were voicing their concerns and criticisms about critical race theory curriculum, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. The NSBA wanted the Biden administration to treat the parents speaking out as “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.” Notably, the NSBA later apologized and acknowledged “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

Nonetheless, Garland had issued a memo entitled “Partnership Among Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Law Enforcement to Address Threats Against School Administrators, Board Members, Teachers, and Staff.” The memo instructed the FBI to meet with federal, state, and local law enforcement to focus on the alleged threats and how to respond to them. As a result of this memo, the federal government opened 25 preliminary assessment files regarding alleged “school board threats.”

In other words, a Democrat-led “justice” department decided that questioning or opposing left-wing thought orthodoxy like CRT justified the investigation of ordinary Americans with the intent of prosecution.

Nonetheless, the NSBA claimed that an independent review found that there was no collusion with the Biden administration. But a new report from the DOJ reveals, as Kittle put it, “the Biden White House was squarely behind Garland’s effort to find a federal ‘hook’ to prosecute parents and school policy protesters with federal crimes.”

According to the new report, DOJ senior officials and loyalists Biden put in place there “initially pushed back” on the NSBA’s request to target parents, “questioning the constitutionality of the request.” In fact, one email shows Kevin Chambers, then-associate deputy attorney general, calling the effort to enlist federal law enforcement and the claim that parents were domestic terrorists “ridiculous.” But the DOJ ultimately “moved ahead with issuing the Garland Memorandum based on pressure from Biden Administration officials in the White House and leadership at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (‘ODAG’) at the Department of Justice.”

The Biden administration also coordinated with the NSBA on “talking points” to counter parents and other opponents of critical race theory and transgender ideology, Kittle reported.

Jack Smith’s Lawfare Escapades

In addition to these further revelations of Biden administration overreach, Special Counsel Jack Smith, an appointee of Garland, and the anti-Trump lawfare he led during the 2024 election cycle again took center stage last week. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that Smith obtained communications from more than a dozen media outlets, including those of The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway. Smith obtained the messages as part of his “Arctic Frost” witch hunt, which was an unconstitutional effort to get Trump that resulted in Smith’s team spying on members of Congress and the media.

Smith’s team also targeted nearly 5,000 Americans who made political donations to President Donald Trump, Grassley announced. One Iowan who donated $10 to the president just months before the 2020 election had his home address, bank information, and other personal information handed over to the Biden administration’s weaponized FBI and DOJ.

Democrats targeted parents who challenged what their children were being taught, journalists who scrutinized the Biden administration, and Americans who gave Trump as little as $10. They used regular acts of political participation as justification for government investigation and overreach. With each abuse of power, Democrats sent the American people a stark message: Speaking up or disagreeing with the narratives of the regime could put them on the government’s target list.

That’s the legacy voters need to remember this November. A Democrat-controlled Congress would give the same party subpoena power, committee leadership roles, and resources to do what it’s done in the past: investigate and harass its opponents. Democrats don’t need to get back into the White House to haul Americans before committees or demand their records. They just need Congress.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2