Internal emails were uncovered recently that cast a new, negative light on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s record in targeting parents over school board controversies. The communications show that various Justice officials raised alarms over the effort pushed by Democratic allies and the National Association for School Boards. Career officials condemned the Biden Administration proposal by objecting that “If they do this, they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.”
As parents organized against COVID and woke policies being implemented by school boards, Democratic allies and the National Association for School Boards called upon the Biden Administration to crack down. Garland agreed and implemented a plan detailed in an October 2021 memo to treat these parents as engaged in potential “domestic terrorism.”
There was public outrage, but Garland defended the action, declaring “The obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials.”
As the outcry grew, the Biden Administration was forced into a retreat and an apology:
“On behalf of NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter. There was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance. We apologize also for the strain and stress this situation has caused you and your organizations.”
We now know that rank-and-file officials opposed the effort, but decided to go forward anyway. The Justice Department in October 2021 issued a memo to coordinate a response to what it described as an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools” by parents.
Newly released emails raised all the objections later made by critics after the policy’s release. One deputy assistant attorney general wrote that:
“I don’t think it’s possible to state how strongly I object to this. It will completely and totally nuke our election threats efforts, and will damage the reputation of the Public Integrity Section into the bargain. It’s like they’ve affirmatively trying to make this thing not work and look political.”
When officials said that the Biden Administration was about to create an “Anti-MAGA Task Force,” officials responded, “Exactly! Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Another principal deputy assistant attorney general wrote,
“We will not do this. There is no conceivable connection to [public integrity] (indeed, I’m not seeing a federal interest of any kind.). And if they’re going to make the AG’s memo to the field about this and election threats, I’m going to strongly recommend that they not send it.”
The Public Integrity section chief agreed, saying the memo could turn the Justice Department and the FBI into the “threat police” and that it contained “no limiting principle at all.”
The question is how such an ill-considered, excessive memo could be issued in light of such internal opposition. The answer focuses new attention on the record of Garland, who seemed at times to be a virtual pedestrian in decisions at his own department.
In 2022, I wrote a column titled “The Incredible Shrinking Merrick Garland” to express my disappointment in his developing record as someone who supported his nomination. Citing the school memo and other decisions, I wrote that Garland appeared increasingly “immaterial” to the running of the department:
“Garland sometimes looks more like a pedestrian than a driver on decisions in his own department. Top positions were given to figures denounced as far-left advocates on issues from defunding the police to racial justice. For the moderate Garland, these did not seem like natural choices.”
As Special Counsel Jack Smith took a hatchet to preexisting DOJ policies and the First Amendment in his crusade against Donald Trump, Garland seemed little more than a figurehead in refusing to exercise any moderating or supervisory influence. Likewise, as his department pursued a “shock and awe campaign” against citizens who joined the January 6th protests, Garland remained passive.
By 2023, I was writing columns that Garland had become an “utter failure” as Attorney General. He had become the kind face of a department weaponizing charges and targeting opponents. While the same charges have been leveled at the current Administration, that does not alter the troubling legacy of Merrick Garland.
The school board memo reflects how political rather than legal or institutional priorities prevailed under Garland. The merits of these controversies can be left to history. However, what is most striking is the absence of any discernible control or direction from Garland. Unlike his predecessor, Bill Barr, who was famously “hands-on” in his leadership style, Garland delegated authority to powerful subordinates, who carried out these measures with little apparent restraint.
As discussed in my 2022 column, Garland seemed to morph with the character Scott Stuart in the cult classic, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” in which Stuart delivers a strikingly profound line: “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle.”
That may be the final epitaph of Merrick Garland’s record as United States Attorney General.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
If your child harms your neighbor or destroys property, most responsible parents (grownups) force their children to own up to it and apologize.
This apology is also a deterrent to the child to not do this in the future.
Government bureaucrats at DOJ and most agencies (not children but grownups) refuse to apologize to the innocent Americans they harmed over 25 years of fraudulent blacklisting.
Official public apologies act as deterrent effect against lawless government officials. The goal is deter lawless unconstitutional behavior so it’s NOT business-as-usual.
Too many (not all) DOJ bureaucrats act as irresponsible children never owning up to their mistakes and wrongdoing, never apologizing for their wreckless behavior. Your own children are watching, how can you be a good parent and then not practice what you preach?
What do the children of George W. Bush and John Ashcroft think of them harming innocent Americans for 25 years then refusing to apologize?
The 20+ years of genuinely evil illegal practices of “Fusion Centers” (financed by DOJ and DHS) cannot be fixed simply by defunding unconstitutional illegal practices.
Innocent Americans with no legitimate ties to 9/11 terrorism have been destroyed and defamed within their local police departments and state police.
Harassed more than 9000 consecutive days by local officials and defamed in their own neighborhoods. Simply defunding unconstitutional illegal practices doesn’t fix this.
The federal Attorney General needs to issue official apology letters to their innocent crime victims they tortured for more than 25 years. Apology letters that can be used for future employers or future customers (since many became self-employed due to DOJ’s evil ungodly program).
The DOJ needs to admit wrongdoing and issue these apology letters. The profit-driven program having nothing to do with public safety or national security is still interrogating innocent Americans in 2026 (25 years later). The evil ungodly program is still operating without judicial warrants and still defying the “Carpenter v. US” court ruling.
Ungodly evil is happening right now and DOJ needs to publicly own up to their illegal practices. John Ashcroft with his Christian values should publicly apologize to his victims for his well-intended road to hell. George W. Bush now knows the program was a complete failure. Man up and publicly apologize to your victims!
This loser must be must be a close friend of Garland.
Wild stuff. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in water and now needs the PA AG’s office to review all attempts to overturn a murder conviction.
“In a forceful and scolding opinion, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s s, “violated its duty of candor,” and submitted false statements when asking a judge to vacate a 2004 murder conviction.
Justice Kevin Dougherty wrote that prosecutors’ pattern of misleading judges in seeking to overturn murder convictions is so troubling and recurrent that, going forward, before Krasner’s office seeks such relief, judges must notify the state attorney general’s office and allow it to review the case.”
Today in 2026, as you read this, the DOJ is funding billions of your tax dollars to “Fusion Centers”.
Fusion Centers are unconstitutional blacklisting centers designed to subvert 4th Amendment law. By design, DOJ actively drives and finances government programs to violate their own oath of office.
Fusion Centers were originally created to blacklist terrorism suspects after 9/11 affiliated with suicidal terrorist groups.
In the early 2000’s, the ACLU discovered some Fusion Centers – without judicial warrants and without oversight by judges – were illegally blacklisting African-American college students attending all black colleges. Blacklisting (for life) innocent college students. Some states blacklisted non-violent environmental rights activists and LGBT groups.
If you are an American citizen targeted, harmed or destroyed by DOJ funded Fusion Centers, the check & balance on that illegal program would be the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division or your state’s Attorney General’s office. This illegal program also neutered any government watchdog to provide checks & balances on this unconstitutional practice.
The U.S. Supreme Court in over 25 years has refused to provide substantial “judicial review” on Fusion Centers violating our 4th Amendment rights and constitutional due process.
Most employees of DOJ are great public servants working in a severely broken agency. DOJ needs to return to it’s original mission (1870) of protecting our constitutional rights instead of the being the worse violator of 4th Amendment rights and perpetrating shadow justice systems (COINTELPRO) not found in the U.S. Constitution and not found in DOJ’s oath of office. DOJ has no authority under the U.S. Constitution to violate rights.
War Reveals Trump As Disconnected
Until this war, Trump was able to bullsh!t and change the subject on any given issue. And predictably rightwing media (and columnists like Turley) would be more than happy to assist; spinning every issue as culture war flashpoints.
But the war with Iran is an issue where Trump’s bullsh!t boomerangs. When he says he has a deal, yet nothing concrete, the world knows that Trump is divorced from reality. Iran certainly knows. Europe can see. Even Republican Senators admit none of these deals are real.
Meanwhile rightwing media has no means of spinning victory from vaguely worded deals. Trump either has a deal or doesn’t. And if he can’t answer obvious questions about the substance of these deals, rightwing media can’t cover.
Trump is the weakest wartime leader this country ever had. Men disconnected from reality are the very worst managers of military efforts. If the president doesn’t know what’s happening with his war, no one can save him.
This article is NOT about Donald Trump. It’s about Merrick Garland and attorneys at the DOJ who weaponized it for political gain. Stop deflecting.
Liberal troll bots can’t understand the simple concept of staying on topic.
Trump has signed a memorandum of understanding, nothing more. It now starts the negotiations for the real deal. Haven’t you learned anything about Trump yet?
LOL What a loon
O-dumber had a contract with Iran and did they follow the rules…
NOPE.
Some often-merited scorn has been heaped upon Mitch McConnell’s time in the Senate, but he held the line against Merrick Garland becoming a Supreme Court Justice after Justice Scalia’s sudden death, and he likely saved the republic as a result. What an absolute disaster Justice Merrick Garland would have been!
Garland: Reluctant Lightning Rod
Many Democrats were unhappy with Merrick Garland. Many felt that Garland was way too cautious for not hiring Jack Smith immediately after January 6th.
But Garland guessed correctly that ‘he’, more than anyone, would be accused of ‘weaponizing the DOJ’. Garland knew any attempt to investigate January 6th, in a TIMELY fashion, would trigger vicious hatred from rightwing media.
So Garland slow-walked January 6th. Waiting too long for Jack Smith’s appointment. That upset many Democrats. So it’s absurdly ironic that Turley runs this column today.
Today, in Evian France, Trump gave a press conference where even ‘he’ cast doubts on the Iran deal. The deal raises more questions than it ever begins to answer.
And Trump being Trump keeps changing his story. Raising questions of whether he is capable of tracking this war. Maybe Trump checked out on this war several weeks ago? And only Trump knew what the plan was.
Did O-dumber know the plan when he attacked Libya?
I guess not, because he turned that country into a (black) slave state.
Great job, for a black Prez.