This is what the weaponization of government looks like: the chilling reality of federal agents investigating a mother for gun ownership and belonging to a “right-wing mom’s group,” or harassing a father for “rail[ing] against the government.” A bombshell Department of Justice report has now confirmed what conservatives have long suspected – the Biden White House directly orchestrated this unprecedented campaign to label concerned parents as “domestic terrorists” for speaking out at school board meetings.
It was just five years ago today that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland issued his infamous memorandum, outlining how his politically driven Department of Justice would assist in investigating and prosecuting parents accused of being “domestic terrorists.” This memo followed a desperate plea from the National School Boards Association (NSBA), which had begged President Joe Biden to treat parental confrontations as “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”
The NSBA was ultimately forced to issue a humiliating apology after widespread criticism, acknowledging “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.” Yet, despite this admission, Garland stubbornly refused to rescind his memo. Federal law enforcement then opened 25 preliminary assessment files, known as Guardian assessments, into these dubious “school board threats.” Six even originated from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. Not a single target was prosecuted, highlighting the baseless nature of these investigations.
Now, a new, critical DOJ report shatters any remaining pretense of innocence. It explicitly states that the Biden White House was squarely behind Garland’s aggressive effort to find a federal “hook” to prosecute parents and school policy protesters with federal crimes. This finding directly contradicts a prior NSBA “independent review” that conveniently found no collusion with the Biden administration. And there it is.
“The Garland Memorandum was the product of pressure by senior leadership to support the NSBA and to bring federal pressure to bear on parents protesting school districts that had enacted certain policies,” asserts “The 2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools,” released by Attorney General Todd Blanche on Monday morning.
Remarkably, the report reveals that even some within the Department of Justice initially resisted, questioning the constitutionality of the White House’s demands. Federal agents themselves described the plan as “stupid,” “ridiculous,” and a “partisan exercise aimed at those who do not support the Administration.” Yet, despite this internal pushback, the Department moved forward, driven by “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.”
‘A Political Offensive’
The NSBA letter to Biden, sent on September 29, 2021, came after months of growing frustration from parents nationwide. They were rightly incensed over closed schools, mask mandates, vaccine policies, and the social reengineering curricula pushing racist Critical Race Theory into classrooms. While some local school officials bristled at the tone of parental criticism, escalating the situation, the White House saw an opportunity for a political offensive.
The NSBA has now admitted to coordinating with Biden’s Department of Education since July 2021 to provide “talking points and push back on critics regarding critical race theory (“CRT”) and transgender policies.” This, according to the report, was designed to address “hostile situations for school board members.”
A 2023 Interim Staff Report from the House’s Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government previously found “the absence of a legitimate nationwide basis for the Attorney General’s directive to insert federal law enforcement into local school board matters.” The committee report concluded that the administration’s actions were clearly “a political offensive meant to quell swelling discord over controversial education curricula and unpopular school board decisions.”
‘Anti-MAGA Task Force’
The new DOJ report details how Ephraim McDowell, then Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House Counsel’s Office, forwarded an email from NSBA’s Chip Slaven to Eric Nguyen in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. Slaven had originally sent the email to Mary C. Wall, a senior adviser to Biden and the White House’s direct link to the NSBA. Wall sought a “sneak peek” at the association’s letter, explicitly stating, “I’m meeting with colleagues from other WH offices and DOJ tomorrow morning to see if there might be any options we can pursue here.” Slaven, for his part, made vague and unproven claims about “Proud Boys members” and “Qanon followers” appearing at school board meetings.
Kevin Chambers, an associate deputy attorney general who ultimately took the lead on the DOJ’s part of this coordinated effort, was in the email chain. Chambers, like others, initially raised concerns about federal intervention, finding Slaven’s claims of domestic terrorism utterly unconvincing. One DOJ official was blunt, writing in an email dated September 24, 2021: “This is ridiculous.”
Source: Weaponization Working Group Report
Chambers himself initially saw it as merely a “local issue.” Yet, he mysteriously became “malleable on the matter,” second-guessing himself and wondering if some threats had a “federal dimension.” Funny how that always seems to happen when the White House leans on you.
When the NSBA letter finally dropped, it “kicked off a flurry of activity” at DOJ, as high-ranking officials in the Biden administration “pushed to treat protests of school policies as possible violations of federal criminal law.” The White House’s McDowell emphasized the “urgency” of the issue to Chambers, wanting to know “what DOJ is thinking about them.”
Even FBI officials tried to inject common sense. “This is potentially dangerous ground, to blanket label generalized activity that constitutes DT [domestic terrorism] regardless of federal violations,” wrote the FBI’s Steven Jensen in an October 1 email, noting the obvious fact that not all opponents of school board actions are domestic terrorists.
But the political train had left the station. The following day, Chambers informed DOJ attorneys that a “draft memo from the AG” on parental protests and “threats against election officials” was coming. The news was met with internal outrage. One attorney huffed that leadership “might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.” Another responded, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Yet another warned that making the “DOJ/FBI…. The threats police” lacked a “limiting principle.”
Source: The Weaponization Working Group Report
‘Misinformation and Disinformation’
Undeterred, Chambers and his team proceeded with the Garland memo, even sending the NSBA an advance copy. In an email dated October 4, 2021, a DOJ Public Affairs official told Slaven that the matter was “a very important issue” to the department. Slaven, eager to play his part, responded that his association was ready to assist, even asking two days after the Garland memo went out whether the NSBA should “be communicating with” the FBI to inform on parents “if things increase.”
The Justice Department wasn’t the only agency weaponized. Garland’s team even sought to involve the National Security Division “in matters involving parents and school boards.”
Source: The Weaponization Working Group Report
The Department of Homeland Security, according to the report, circulated a threat assessment titled, “Threats to Public Schools Likely Elevated Due to Opposition of Mask and Vaccine Mandates, Perception of Critical Race Theory.” The agency, with “medium confidence,” blamed potential threats on “misinformation and disinformation related to CRT curriculum, and upcoming school board elections.” Sound familiar? This coordinated effort ran in parallel with Biden’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) actively censoring conservatives, accusing them of disseminating “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “malinformation.” The pattern is clear.
Even after the NSBA shamefully withdrew its letter, the DOJ continued its assault on citizens for their political speech. A January 10, 2022 email from Chambers confirmed that the DOJ task force was “continuing to track threats and investigate parents.”
‘They Came After Me Relentlessly’
At a June Roundtable on Exposing Weaponization Against Parents in Schools, one parent powerfully articulated the real-world consequences of Garland’s memo: it served as “a green light, a permission slip to these activists in the community… to target people, to intimidate people, to harass people.”
“According to the federal government, we’re the bad ones … They came after me relentlessly,” the parent recounted. “I was subject … to a year long online defamation campaign. I had hate mail sent to my home saying that I was a cancer to the community. I had a … box of coal delivered to my door which my daughters opened on Christmas Eve. I had mail sent to all of my neighbors saying that I was a racist and white supremacist and they should shun me.”
Among those targeted by the NSBA’s list of potential domestic terrorists was Scott Smith, whose disabled daughter was sexually assaulted in a school restroom by a male student dressed in female attire. Smith courageously spoke up at a school board meeting after the Loudoun County (Va.) School Superintendent falsely denied any record of assaults. Smith was later arrested on disorderly conduct charges after a confrontation, only to be rightfully pardoned by then-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. This is the caliber of parent the Biden administration tried to silence.
‘Without Fear or Favor’
The Weaponization Working Group has now made several recommendations to begin rectifying the Garland DOJ’s profound abuses. These include allowing targeted parents to review their DOJ reports, adding disclaimers about constitutional concerns, and issuing formal apologies if constitutional rights were violated. Internal controls will be instituted to prevent future abuses.
Furthermore, the DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services will partner with the National Association of School Resource Officers, providing $1.5 million for training to inform school employees about parental rights in education. Additional funding will train teachers and staff on the First Amendment rights of parents “to direct and guide the upbringing and education of their children.” The DOJ and Department of Education leadership have also sent letters to all 50 state attorneys general regarding parental rights.
In a predictable statement, the DOJ claims it “remains committed to defending Constitutionally protected civil liberties, especially the First Amendment rights of all Americans,” and will “evaluate such matters without fear or favor.” This hollow rhetoric rings particularly false given the damning evidence of their own political machinations. This report serves as a stark reminder of the lengths to which the Biden administration was willing to go to silence dissent, weaponizing federal power against everyday Americans simply for daring to speak up for their children and their communities. It’s a betrayal of public trust and a dangerous precedent that demands full accountability to restore faith in the principles of free speech and limited government, vital tenets of the America First vision.
