(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Moms for Liberty is a non-profit organization aiming to counter the public-school system’s attempts to indoctrinate students to favor genital mutilations, mask mandates, racial profiling and other un-American ideals.
But to the Department of Justice, the group’s members are potential domestic terrorists. This was revealed last May, when an FBI whistleblower told the House Judiciary Committee that the bureau opened an investigation into a Moms for Liberty member.
The investigation was reportedly opened after the FBI received a tip that a mom had told a local school board, “We are coming for you.”
The FBI interviewed the mom in question, who told agents she was simply referring to the fact that she would seek to replace the school board members via the electoral process. The FBI closed its investigation without taking any action.
But the damage was done. The DOJ’s targeting of Moms for Liberty and other protesting parents has put a chilling effect on the movement, according to Brooke Weiss, the head of a Moms for Liberty chapter in North Carolina.
“It scares the crap out of parents,” Weiss told Headline USA.
Weiss said Moms for Liberty isn’t concerned about criminal prosecutions “because we don’t do anything wrong.”
But the organization is worried that the FBI is monitoring its members. Weiss said private chat group messages and emails are constantly being leaked—suggesting that Moms for Liberty is being infiltrated by spies.
“There’s no way to weed those people out, unfortunately,” she said.
It’s not clear whether the Moms for Liberty infiltrators are federal informants or other bad actors.
However, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave the FBI carte blanche to spy on Moms for Liberty and other dissident parents when he issued a memo in Oct. 2021, directing the FBI to divert counterterrorism resources towards tracking alleged threats against educators.
Along with the one opened-and-closed investigation into the Moms for Liberty member, it has since been revealed that the FBI opened at least 25 “assessments” into alleged threats from parents.
An FBI “assessment” is a constitutionally dubious category that allows the bureau to conduct surveillance against a target without a factual predicate of criminal wrongdoing—meaning that the FBI could still be actively monitoring Moms for Liberty.
The Government Accountability Office told Headline USA that it it will soon begin reviewing the FBI’s use of “assessments.” The impending GAO audit stems from a request more than a year ago from Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Jamie Raskin, D-N.Y., who expressed concern that assessments operate as “de facto investigations that can be launched without a factual predicate of criminal wrongdoing.”
But meanwhile, Garland’s directive for the FBI to monitor alleged school board threats remains in effect. This is despite the fact that his directive was predicated on a National School Boards Association letter to President Joe Biden “urging him to weaponize the Patriot Act against parents,” which the NSBA has since rescinded and apologized for.
The House Judiciary Committee continues to invesetigate the matter. Its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced last month that he’s subpoenaed two NSBA officials who co-signed the letter that led to Garland’s directive.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
