President Joe Biden’s Education Secretary Miguel Cardona reportedly requested the National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter that branded concerned parents as “domestic terrorists” last year, an email exchange reviewed by Fox News first revealed Tuesday. The letter was used as justification for the Department of Justice to mobilize the FBI on behalf of local education officials.
According to the email, NSBA Secretary-Treasurer Kristi Swett explained that NSBA interim CEO Chip Slaven “told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona.”
The group Parents Defending Education first obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Should this allegation be true, it would reveal that this administration’s pretextual war on parents came from the highest levels,” the group’s president Nicole Neily told Fox News Digital.
“Attorney General Merrick Garland unequivocally stated that he based his memo on the NSBA’s letter – which in turn, mobilized the FBI and US Attorneys,” she continued. “If Secretary Cardona was truly involved in this ugly episode, it is a significant breach of public trust, and he should be held accountable.”
In November, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) explained in a letter to the NSBA that members of the House Judiciary Committee are investigating “the troubling attempts by the Department of Justice and the White House to use the heavy hand of federal law enforcement to target concerned parents at local school board meetings and chill their protected First Amendment activity.”
Jordan argued that parents have “an undisputed right to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” including expressing concerns over “controversial curricula” in their child’s school.
Two months earlier, the NSBA, representing 90,000 school-board members, asked President Biden to direct the FBI, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to provide protection for members facing “threats” amid ongoing tensions over COVID-19 regulations and critical race theory in the classroom. The group also requested that the federal government investigate “threats of violence” and “acts of intimidation” as possible forms of “domestic terrorism.”
Just over a week later, Biden’s Department of Justice directed the FBI to help combat “efforts to intimidate” and “threats” allegedly aimed at school officials and teachers.
A DOJ whistleblower later revealed that FBI is using its counterterrorism division to apply a new “threat tag” to track concerned parents.
Following intense backlash, the NSBA apologized for the letter and vowed to “do better going forward.”
