{"id":1105761,"date":"2021-12-10T10:59:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1105761"},"modified":"2021-12-10T10:59:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T15:59:04","slug":"gop-senators-to-garland-you-have-given-life-to-the-idea-that-dissidents-are-synonymous-with-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-senators-to-garland-you-have-given-life-to-the-idea-that-dissidents-are-synonymous-with-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Senators to Garland: &#039;You Have Given Life to the Idea that Dissidents Are Synonymous with Terrorists&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-senators-to-garland-you-have-given-life-to-the-idea-that-dissidents-are-synonymous-with-terrorists%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1105761&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1231327537-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">A letter signed by the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded Attorney General Merrick Garland withdraw his October 4 memo ordering the FBI to investigate parents who speak at school board meetings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre concerned parents domestic terrorists or not?\u201d the letter begins. Referencing their October 7 letter to Garland, the senators write, \u201c\u2026it is not the job of the federal government to silence those who question local school boards.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>As Breitbart News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/16\/department-of-justice-education-bureaucracy-have-declared-war-on-parents-as-whistleblower-reveals-use-of-counterterrorism-tools\/\">reported<\/a>, an FBI whistleblower revealed in November the involvement of the counterterrorism division to look into parents concerned about their children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo arm of the government, including the offices under your command, may be used to chill criticism of local government officials,\u201d the December 6 letter continues. \u201cBy involving the FBI\u2019s Counterterrorism Division in this matter, that is exactly what you have done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Describing school officials as persons who \u201cjust happen to be a major constituency of the political party that currently controls the White House and the Department of Justice,\u201d the senators write that the use of counterterrorism tools against parents is the federal government\u2019s attempt to flex its \u201cmuscle in [the] marketplace of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>The Judiciary Republicans point out that there are many who would benefit politically from federal censors. \u201cMake no mistake about it \u2014 there are those who would be perfectly happy with the federal government, now including the FBI\u2019s Counterterrorism Division, scaring people out of criticizing local school boards,\u201d they wrote. \u201cA big part of this problem, which you either do not understand or are complicit in, is that too many people nowadays equate ideas they do not like with violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have given life to the idea that dissidents are synonymous with terrorists,\u201d the senators concluded. \u201cThis is a common tactic of third-world dictatorships, but it should never be FBI practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Breitbart News reported, Republicans in the House are also trying to get answers from Garland and others involved with the National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter that first referred to parents as \u201cdomestic terrorists,\u201d and \u2014 according to Garland \u2014 motivated his memo directing the FBI to investigate them.<\/p>\n<p>But House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/12\/08\/exclusive-jim-jordan-their-goal-was-to-go-after-parents-as-nadler-kills-effort-to-subpoena-nsba-biden-admin-over-domestic-terrorist-letter\/\">told<\/a> Breitbart News that the federal government worked directly with the NSBA to craft the letter in order to fabricate the premise for investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think the school board letter was the catalyst,\u201d he told Breitbart News. \u201cI think the Biden administration and the Garland Justice Department set out \u2014 their goal was to go after parents and chill any speech that was critical of what they wanted to do.&nbsp;And they were just looking for a pretext, a catalyst, an excuse to do what they wanted to do.&nbsp;And they go, \u2018Oh, let\u2019s work with the school board association to get them to send us the letter, then we\u2019ll go do what we want to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Jordan went on to explain that fabricating a premise to initiate an investigation is a consistent pattern that has been used before to spy on people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I think you got to view the letter from the School Board Association, in the same context as the dossier and the Trump-Russia investigation,\u201d Jordan told Breitbart News. \u201cJim Comey wanted, and the Obama FBI and Justice Department, wanted to go after President Trump, they wanted to spy on President Trump. But they needed an excuse, and the excuse became, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s a dossier.\u2019 Jim Comey sees this, knows it\u2019s garbage, but he goes and flies up to Trump Tower in January, early January of 2017, before President Trump\u2019s even been sworn in, and gives him a briefing on the dossier because they want to use that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo they needed a catalyst to do what they wanted to do,\u201d Jordan concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s a template that we see being used, and it\u2019s exactly the template that was used here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter was signed by ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Kennedy (R-LA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).<\/p>\n<p><em>Breccan F. Thies<\/em>&nbsp;<em>is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter&nbsp;<a title=\"This external link will open in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreccanFThies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BreccanFThies<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A letter signed by the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded Attorney General Merrick Garland withdraw his October 4 memo ordering the FBI to investigate parents who speak &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1105761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1105761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1105761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1105761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}