House Judiciary Subpoenas FBI Director Wray and AG Garland for Targeting Parents

House Judiciary Republicans issued subpoenas to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to produce documents about alleged FBI investigations of parents at school board meetings in response to a controversial directive that Garland issued in late 2021.

The Epoch Times reviewed the subpoena, signed by Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), which forces Wray to turn over relevant documents to the House Judiciary Committee on March 1 at 9:00 a.m. ET due to the alleged “misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources.”

“Since October 2021, Judiciary Committee Republicans have sent over one hundred letters to Biden Administration officials requesting answers about how the Administration used federal counterterrorism resources against American parents,” the House Judiciary Committee said in a later news release.

The Oct. 4, 2021, memo directed the FBI to team up with local law enforcement agencies and U.S. Attorneys to identify possible threats at school board meetings. It came in light of viral incidents where parents criticized school board members and teachers across the United States, accusing those officials of promoting left-wing or pro-LGBT viewpoints to students.

All documents and communications relating to the FBI’s “EDUOFFICIALS” threat tag and related investigations are also sought by House Judiciary Republicans, according to the subpoena. Weeks after Garland’s announcement, House Judiciary Republicans, citing whistleblower testimony, revealed how the FBI created the threat tag to track allegedly threatening statements at board meetings and said it was proof that counterterrorism resources were being used against parents.

“This subpoena is continuing in nature and applies to any newly discovered documents, regardless of the date of its creation,” it says. “Any document not produced because it has not been located or discovered by the return date should be produced immediately upon location or discovery subsequent thereto.”

House Judiciary Republicans on Friday also subpoenaed Garland, asking the attorney general to hand over relevant documents and communications linked to his October 2021 directive. Namely, Republicans are seeking communications and documents between Garland and top officials in the National School Board Association (NSBA) regarding a September 2021 letter on alleged threats or violence at school board meetings.

“The FBI has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be. Our focus is and always will be on protecting people from violence and threats of violence,” a spokesperson for the FBI said. “We are fully committed to preserving and protecting First Amendment rights including the right to free speech.”

About a year ago, Jordan and other Republicans said that whistleblowers came to them and alleged the FBI carried out dozens of investigations into American parents who complained about schools’ COVID-19 mandates and labeled them with a “threat tag.”

The alleged FBI investigations targeted parents who were “upset about mask mandates and state elected officials who publicly voiced opposition to vaccine mandates,” the GOP lawmakers said at the time, noting that it was the EDUOFFICIALS tag that was used to label those individuals.

“In sworn testimony before this Committee, you denied that the Department of Justice or its components were using counterterrorism statutes and resources to target parents at school board meetings,” the lawmakers wrote. “We now have evidence that [is] contrary to your testimony.”