© Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
News: Senate Appropriations Committee Hearings
WASHINGTON (77WABC) — House Republicans say they have evidence FBI whistleblowers indicate the agency used anti-terrorism tools to investigate parents critical of school boards’ COVID-19 policies.
This comes despite assurances from Attorney General Merrick Garland to lawmakers that such practices would not take place. Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division created a “threat tag” to track investigations into parents who spoke at school boards in opposition to vaccine and mask mandates even though they were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
The Ohio congressman said the use of the threat tag followed a controversial memo the Justice Department released on Oct. 4, 2021, in response to the National School Boards Association’s appeal to use “counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act,” to target parents at school board meetings.
In the Oct. 4 memo, Garland had directed FBI agents to work with local law enforcement to investigate “threats of violence.”
