FBI Director Christopher Wray distanced himself from Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum targeting parents at school board meetings because of unsubstantiated assertions about growing numbers of threats to school board members.
Wray was asked by Republican California Rep. Kevin Kiley at an FBI oversight hearing Wednesday about the memorandum Garland sent to Wray in October 2021 to address alleged threats to school board officials. (RELATED: FBI Director Reminds Adam Schiff About Violent Left-Wing Extremism)
“Director Wray, did Attorney General Garland consult with you or the FBI before issuing that memorandum?” Kiley asked.
“I can’t get into discussions that did or, maybe more importantly, did not happen between the FBI and the department,” Wray replied.
“Why do you say, ‘more importantly did not?'” Kiley followed up. (RELATED: Wray Says FBI Was Meeting With Social Media Companies Until Federal Judge Stopped Them)
“Well, because I will say to you the same thing that I said to all 56 of our field offices as soon as I read the memo, which is that the FBI is not in the business of investigating or policing speech at school board meetings, or anywhere else for that matter, and we’re not gonna start now. Now, violence, threats of violence, that’s a different matter,” Wray said.
Garland’s memo was inspired by a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) asking the Biden administration to investigate alleged threats to school board members that are “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
A report by the House Judiciary Committee released in March showed the FBI opened at least 25 “guardian assessments” into alleged school board threats, with six cases handled by the bureau’s counterterrorism division.
The report shows the FBI found no evidence of an increased number of threats directed towards school officials, and no federal prosecutions have resulted from the bureau’s investigations. Wray confirmed to Rep. Kiley there was no uptick in threats and no federal prosecutions for alleged threats to school board members.
Internal Justice Department communications described by the report demonstrated Garland would not have possessed evidence to justify his assertion that threats toward school board officials were rising.
“Internal Justice Department communications show that had Attorney General Garland performed a modicum of due diligence prior to issuing his memorandum, he would have learned that there was no ‘disturbing spike’ in alleged threats and violence at school board meetings, as he alleged in his memorandum.”
Rep. Kiley questioned Wray over the report’s conclusion about the Justice Department’s lack of due diligence. Wray did not dispute the report’s findings.
“So, we had an investigation of parents, we had a sweeping mobilization of federal power against the most protected, core First Amendment activity: the right of citizens to speak and petition their government on the most important of issues — the education of their children,” Kiley said. “And you are telling me that the entire basis for that, there was no evidence to support it?”
“Well, I want to be clear, we, the FBI, as I said, we’re not and did not investigate people for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Wray stated.
Kiley pressed Wray on whether Garland should rescind the memo.
“That’s a question for the Attorney General,” Wray responded.
“Do you believe he should?” Kiley wondered.
“Again, that’s a question for the Attorney General,” Wray repeated.
“Do you believe that the attorney general should apologize to parents for the subject of that memo?” Kiley asked.
“I’m not going to speak to that,” Wray said. The FBI Director also refused to apologize for the bureau’s role in carrying out Garland’s memo.
The House Judiciary also found evidence of coordination between the NSBA and the Biden administration before the NSBA publicized its letter to the White House. NSBA officials sent the letter to Department of Education (DOE) officials a day before it was released, and redacted emails between multiple DOE officials indicate the letter was received.
Prior to Garland’s infamous memo, the Justice Department emailed a copy to the NSBA and said it was “committed to addressing” the perceived rise in threats to school board members, according to an email in the House Judiciary report.
The NSBA replied to the DOJ by saying it was “ready to work” with the DOJ on its investigations. Justice Department officials also collaborated with DOE officials on its attempt to get federal law enforcement to monitor local school board meetings, the Judiciary Committee discovered.
The report observed widespread opposition to Garland’s memo from school board officials and confusion from DOJ officials about how to execute the attorney general’s directive. An exception was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia who deployed federal resources after only one perceived threat began circulating on social media.
Here’s Friend’s testimony, from May 18 before the Weaponization Committee
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) July 12, 2023
FBI whistleblower and conservative activist Steve Friend testified in May to the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about how the FBI sent him to a parking lot outside of a school board meeting to take down parents’ license plate numbers.
Friend told Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz he went to school board meetings as a parent and “my colleagues teased me that they were probably going to start investigating me.”
The former FBI Agent said on Twitter Wray lied about the extent to which FBI agents monitored school boards.
“The @FBI Director told @JudiciaryGOP that special agents did not conduct surveillance of school boards,” he tweeted. “He lied. The Joint Terrorism Task Force in my office did it. I testified about the details in May.”