Biden DOJ Officials Warned Garland Memo Targeting Parents Looked Like an ‘Anti-MAGA Task Force’
5th October 2026
Biden Justice Department officials raised serious concerns about the DOJ treating concerned parents like domestic terrorists before Attorney General Merrick Garland released his memo directing investigations into school board protests in 2021, a new report from the Trump administration’s Weaponization Working Group reveals.
DOJ attorneys repeatedly questioned the proposal internally. One official called the effort “ridiculous.” Another complained that the department was deploying “an awful lot of federal manpower for what is currently non-federal conduct,” and that “almost all” of the conduct cited by school boards involved speech protected by the First Amendment.
The issue traces back to September 2021, when the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging federal action against alleged threats against school board members. The letter suggested the government could treat some conduct as “the equivalent of a form of domestic terrorism,” and cited disputes involving COVID-19 mandates, critical race theory, transgender orthodoxy, and other issues.