by Jerry Dunleavy at The Washington Examiner
Newly revealed documents provide more details about how the White House and the National School Boards Association communicated prior to the NSBA’s letter comparing protesting parents to domestic terrorists.
The letter, which spurred Attorney General Merrick Garland to direct the FBI and other Justice Department arms to help police alleged threats against school board members, has raised the suspicions of Republican lawmakers. They believe the letter was the product of collusion by the White House and the school boards group which later renounced it.
An Oct. 12 memo from NSBA President Victoria Garcia to NSBA’s state association officers obtained by the advocacy group Parents Defending Education and provided to the Washington Examiner shows the NSBA met with White House officials in mid-September.
Garcia’s October memo provided excerpts of a mid-September email that NSBA’s Interim Director and CEO Chip Slaven sent out, including that “a letter requesting federal assistance would be sent.”
Slaven’s email added: “Further, NSBA has drafted its own individual letter that has been in the planning for several days that will also go out next week.”
Garland revealed last month that DOJ and the White House communicated about the late September NSBA letter just before he issued his early October memo , with the NSBA letter urging the DOJ to look into deploying the PATRIOT Act against protesting parents. Garland’s memo alleges there has been a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school employees and school board members. It said the DOJ will “discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”
The NSBA president took credit for Garland’s memo in her October letter, writing…
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