When a Republican congressman detailed COVID-era “cruelty” of school policies for kids and the shocking persecution of disgruntled parents as “domestic terrorists” by the FBI and DOJ, FBI Director Chris Wray reluctantly admitted the federal targeting had not been based on any solid evidence.
And the federal government wonders why Americans don’t trust them anymore.
The House Judiciary Committee held a July 12 hearing to hold Biden’s FBI Director Christopher Wray to some accountability. During the hearing, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) slammed school COVID-19 policies in 2021 and grilled Wray on the supposed justifications for FBI targeting of parents who complained about those school policies. The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) actually used counterterrorism tools to target parents unhappy with abusive COVID policies, according to congressional Republicans. Kiley got Wray to admit that the investigations into the supposedly “extremist” parents were launched without solid evidence to justify them.
When asked specifically if the FBI had evidence that “there was an increase in harassment and threats of violence” justifying investigation into dissatisfied parents, Wray confessed, “I’m not aware of any such evidence.” When Kiley then asked if it were true there’s been no observable increase in threats against school officials, Wray gave a rare straight answer: “Yes, sir.”
.@RepKiley slams draconian 2021 Covid measures in schools and calls out the Biden administration for targeting parents who complained pic.twitter.com/jMq3Bx6vTH
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) July 12, 2023
Kiley began his questioning by detailing some of the COVID policies to which parents objected. Schools, which had originally remained closed for months on end without solid reasons, instituted “draconian testing and quarantine regimes, such as one student is possibly exposed to COVID, everyone goes home for the week,” Kiley said. “Children as young as toddlers were subjected to harmful mask mandates that defied international norms,” he continued. “The way some students were treated truly shocks the conscience.”
The representative then gave examples of the harmful policies from his home state of California. One school district told parents their children would have to eat lunch outside in the rain to “reduce exposure” to COVID. A school forced kids to chew food with their masks on. Some Los Angeles schools, Kiley said, both refused students water outside of lunch and restricted them to one daily bathroom break. Yet another school made its young students eat their lunch on the ground.
”In October of that year, the American Academy of Pediatrics would declare a national state of emergency in children’s mental health,” including for suicide attempts, Kiley noted. Indeed, multiple studies and pieces of research have confirmed the serious mental and physical health harms of masks and the sharp increase in youth suicides during COVID lockdowns.
The “Biden administration decided to take action,” Kiley explained, but not to end the damaging policies. “It mobilized the sweeping powers of federal law enforcement. But it wasn’t to spare kids from such cruelty, rather it was to target the parents who were speaking out against it.” The National School Board Association and the Biden administration “coordinated…on a letter that began with the alarming claim” that schools and teachers were “under an immediate threat.” The proof? A few news pieces, mostly citing upset parents voicing their concerns at school board meetings, which the Biden administration and National School Board Association deemed a type of “domestic terrorism.”
Kiley said the letter recommended “the full counterterrorism and law enforcement powers of the federal government” to mobilize against these parents. And that’s advice the Biden administration decided to put into action.
Christopher Wray, however, engaged in various verbal gymnastics to avoid giving Kiley any straight answers. He did reluctantly acknowledge the mistaken premise from the DOJ and FBI in this case, however. Ironically, he claimed he had told the FBI back when the Biden administration memo first came out “the FBI is not in the business of investigating or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else.” This is blatantly false, of course; the FBI has repeatedly coordinated censorship activities and become increasingly weaponized against Democrats’ political opponents.
FBI director admits to .@RepKiley that there was not good evidence to justify targeting concerned parents complaining about school policies during Covid pic.twitter.com/rNT6bwIee8
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) July 12, 2023
Wray apparently tried to justify the FBI’s cooperation with the DOJ in targeting parents by blathering about “threats of violence,” but Kiley drove his point home. As Kiley noted, the memo was founded on the premise that the parents were a violent threat. “Was there any evidence that you provided to Attorney General Garland that supported that…premise, that there was an increase in harassment and threats of violence?” he pushed Wray.
Related: The FBI Asks Americans to Report Crimes. Things Go About as Well as You’d Expect.
”I’m not aware of any such evidence,” was Wray’s weak reply, pointing Kiley to other FBI agents who have testified. Kiley said other testimony supported the argument that the Biden administration did not in fact have proof to justify its counterterrorism targeting of parents. And there has not in fact been an “uptick of threats directed at school officials” since the FBI started tracking. Asked if the latter testimony sounded accurate, Wray replied, “Yes, sir.”
Rep. Kiley continued, “And is it also true that, according to the FBI itself, none of the school board-related investigations have resulted in federal arrests or charges?” Wray answered, “I think that’s correct.” Kiley fired back, “This committee’s investigation concluded that the Justice Department’s own documents demonstrate that there was no compelling nationwide law enforcement justification for the attorney general’s directive.”
Of course not. Parents simply wanted schools to stop abusing and stunting the growth of their children. They weren’t running around Antifa-style with guns, threatening to burn down schools. The use of counterterrorism tools against American parents was a politically-fueled embarrassment. It’s no wonder that trust in the FBI is cratering — they’ve proven themselves a threat to Americans’ rights and well-being.
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