U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona asked the leaders of the National School Boards Association to write the infamous letter demanding the Biden administration use domestic terrorism laws to target parents concerned about the indoctrination of their children through school.
According to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education via a Freedom of Information Act request and NSBA Secretary-Treasurer Kristi Swett, CEO Chip Slaven “told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona.”
“If this allegation is true, Secretary Cardona must be held accountable. It would mean a grave breach of public trust and a clear threat to parents’ rights everywhere. Attorney General Merrick Garland repeatedly stated that he based his memo, which mobilized the FBI and US Attorneys, on the NSBA letter,” PDE Founder and President Nicole Neily said in a statement. “This alleged coordination between Secretary Cardona and the Department of Justice is deeply concerning.”
Previous emails obtained by PDE indicated that NSBA President Viola Garcia and Slaven colluded with the Biden White House to get federal law enforcement involved in targeting parents but it was unclear who exactly requested the letter. President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland later used the letter to justify weaponizing the Department of Justice and other federal agencies against American parents.
In a Sept. 29 email to the board, Slaven explained that there were “talks over the last several weeks with White House staff” who “requested additional information on some of the specific threats, so the letter also details many of the incidents that have been occurring.”
“We felt compelled to say something when we started hearing about the threats, harassment, and acts of intimidation at school board meetings,” Garcia wrote.
In addition, the October reports about NSBA’s actions showed that the organization’s board of directors was not consulted about the demands before they were released to the public.
“Many of us have been put in a position now of explaining or defending this action of our association as we are asked by members of our community if we consider them domestic terrorists for showing up to our meetings and expressing their opinions,” a central region director, John W. Halkias, wrote in an email on Oct. 1.
Dozens of state school boards associations took their condemnations one step further and ditched the NSBA over the letter.
Even though more than 25 state school board associations said the letter did not represent how they felt about concerned parents, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe accused moms and dads of engaging in “political violence” at school board meetings.
“Political violence [is] not just confined to the Capitol,” McCabe claimed last week. “It’s going on in school boards around the country. It’s going on in local elections. It’s happening, you know, even to health-care workers.”
