A mother who owned a gun. A father who “railed against the government.” Demands for accountability from public-school boards. On these threads did Merrick Garland and Joe Biden build a “domestic terrorism” campaign designed to suppress dissent over progressive school policies, a new report from the House Judiciary subcommittee on Weaponization of Government reports today.

And both documentation and whistleblowers within the Department of Justice show that no one was buying it below Garland (via Katie Pavlich):

From the initial set of material produced in response to the subpoenas, it is apparent that the Biden Administration misused federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources for political purposes. The Justice Department’s own documents demonstrate that there was no compelling nationwide law-enforcement justification for the Attorney General’s directive or the Department components’ execution thereof. 1 After surveying local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country reported back to Main Justice that there was no legitimate law-enforcement basis for the Attorney General’s directive to use federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources to investigate school board-related threats. …

In response to the Committee’s subpoena, the FBI acknowledged for the first time that it opened 25 “Guardian assessments” of school board threats, and that six of these investigations were run by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. 8 These admissions supplement whistleblower disclosures about the FBI’s actions, including disclosures the FBI investigated a mom because she belonged to a “right-wing mom’s group” and “is a gun owner” and a dad because “he rails against the government.” According to the FBI, none of the school board-related investigations have resulted in federal arrests or charges, highlighting the political motives behind the Attorney General’s actions. The Administration’s goal seems to have been silencing the critics of its radical education policies and neutralizing an issue that was threatening Democrat Party prospects in the close gubernatorial race in Virginia.

The Biden administration has largely refused to cooperate in this exercise of congressional oversight and has not produced requested documentation. Chair Jim Jordan subpoenaed the DoJ for it almost two months ago, but that has only produced a partial response.

Between that and the whistleblower testimonies, however, it paints a damning picture already. Local law enforcement agencies objected to the encroachment of the DoJ into their jurisdictions and told US Attorneys that any threats arising could be dealt with locally. US Attorneys told the DoJ that not only did they not see any such trends at all, let alone manifesting as “domestic terrorism,” their staffs suspected that this was a “manufactured issue.” And even the occasional threat used to justify the approach turned out to be unrelated:

Most threats reported back to Main Justice had little connection to school board matters. For example, the Southern District of Alabama reported that although one of the school board member’s houses was shot at, the incident was the “unfortunate consequence of gun violence in the city” and not related to school board decisions or policies.

Manufactured, indeed. Garland and Biden wanted to paint parental frustration with education policies as an extremist movement, in large part to help out Terry McAuliffe in his push to win election in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election. It was an early practical adaptation of Biden’s demagoguery against “ultra-MAGA” Americans who oppose his policies by punishing them through law-enforcement actions. The National School Board Association collaborated in that effort, providing Garland with cover for implementing this weaponization of the DoJ against dissenting parents:

• The NSBA collaborated with the Biden White House to develop the language of the NSBA’s September 29, 2021 letter to President Biden urging the use of federal lawenforcement and counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act, against parents.
• The NSBA shared the draft language of its letter with the White House, which apparently raised no concerns with the reference to counterterrorism tools or the inclusion of the Patriot Act in the letter.
• Five days after the NSBA letter to President Biden, on October 4, Attorney General Garland issued a memorandum that inserted federal law enforcement into local school board meetings.

Garland never bothered to examine those claims:

There was no “disturbing spike” in threats, as local law enforcement later told US Attorneys tasked to look into it. Why didn’t Garland verify that data first before launching his campaign? Because Garland and Biden wanted an excuse to punish political opponents as well as a way to rescue McAuliffe from a burgeoning parental-rights movement that ended up costing him the election.

This is precisely why the new House has formed this subcommittee. Bear in mind that this is an “interim report,” a review of what the subcommittee has uncovered so far. The mainstream media has mainly refused to cover this — and when it has, it has done so with scorn. Don’t expect news orgs to report on these findings or to ask the tough questions they should generate about Garland and Biden.