Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) slammed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) over his handling of an investigation into the National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter asking the Biden administration to investigate parents as “domestic terrorists,” as Democrats try to “pass this bill which is going to codify the whole plot.”
The House Judiciary Committee is considering H.R. 350, the “Domestic Terrorist Prevention Act.”
The act, Jordan argues, would codify the process by which the Biden administration came to investigate parents with whom it has political disagreements. Jordan has previously told Breitbart News that Democrats have a long history of misusing federal resources to attack their political opponents, such as the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
Speaking at the House Judiciary Committee, ranking member Jordan went through the timeline of impropriety that appears to show the White House soliciting the letter from the NSBA to develop a “pretext” to go after concerned parents who speak at local school board meetings.
The NSBA was asking the Biden administration to “treat parents as terrorists,” Jordan said.
“Let me just read from that letter, because sometimes I think we forget the language that was enclosed in that letter,” he continued. “This is not a sound byte or a conspiracy theory, this is what they wrote to the Biden White House.”
The portion Jordan references is as follows from the September 29, 2021, letter:
NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI, including any technical assistance necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight. Additionally, NSBA requests that such review examine appropriate enforceable actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the Gun-Free School Zones Act, the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights statute, the Conspiracy Against Rights statute, an Executive Order to enforce all applicable federal laws for the protection of students and public school district personnel, and any related measure. As the threats grow and news of extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue.
The letter, Jordan says, was “asking the Biden administration to use the PATRIOT Act against moms and dads.
Five days after the Biden administration received the letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote a memorandum to the director of the FBI ordering the creation of “dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting.”
In effect, Jordan says, the Attorney General ordered the FBI to “open up a snitch line on moms and dads,” and create a “threat tag” to document parents.
Continuing along the timeline, Jordan pointed out that while this was happening, Viola Garcia — an NSBA signatory of the letter — was given a “plum job” at the U.S. Department of Education.
“Maybe most importantly,” Jordan continues, “we learned that the National School Boards Association didn’t really initiate this whole thing. The Biden administration went to them.”
“Emails that we’ve now seen show the Department of Education first went to the School Boards Association, said ‘Write the letter to us, give us the pretext so we can do what we want to do, namely go after parents,'” he said. “So it was a plot, it was a scheme, it was a plan, started first with the administration, not with the School Boards Association.”
But when Garland testified in front of the Judiciary Committee on October 21, he said he “could not imagine any corcumstances where parents are treated as domestic terrorists.”
“Only problem with that statement,” Jordan said, “is the very day before, the email went out to FBI agents around the country saying, ‘treat parents as domestic terrorists, put this threat tag label on them.'”
“Here we are today with a bill that is going to codify, in effect, what took place that the chairman refuses to actually have any more hearings on,” Jordan charged of Nadler. “This bill is going to put in place what these guys attempted to do and did last fall. I think this is definitely the wrong direction to go.” He said in conclusion:
I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that at some point we could have the attorney general come back and talk to us about it. We got a little taste of this last week in the crime subcommittee — we got to talk to the U.S. Attorney from the state of Washington and found out he did in fact convene that meetin. We tried to ask him some questions about it — didn’t really give us any answers. It would be nice if the Attorney General would be back in front of us to deal with this subject.
In response, Nadler attempted to defend the NSBA, saying, “I would simply point out to the gentleman that the National School Boards Association apologized for that letter within days of its issuance –”
“That’s sort of proving my point, I think,” Jordan quickly asserted. “That’s how wrong it was.”
“Well, they made a mistake and they apologized for it and nobody’s taken any action on the basis of it,” Nadler replied.
“The person who hasn’t taken action is the Attorney General of the United States has not rescinded the memo and the action that he put in place. That’s what’s warranted. That’s why we need him back here to answer the questions,” Jordan said in response. “Things he said in that committee hearing that turned out not to be accurate, and we need him to rescind the memo and stop whatever’s gone into place. And the last thing we need to do is to pass this bill which is going to codify the whole plot, and plan, and scheme they initiated last fall.”
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.