Chuck Ross of the Washington Free Beacon reports a Biden Cabinet member’s prominent role in a recent controversy involving government probes of angry parents.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona asked the National School Boards Association to draft a controversial letter that referred to the parents of schoolchildren as potential domestic terrorists, emails show.
According to emails obtained by the group Parents Defending Education, association official Kristi Swett wrote to a colleague that the group’s executive director Chip Slaven said “he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cordona [sic].”
The emails provide the first indication that Cardona had a hand in creating the letter, which provided cover for the Justice Department to form a federal task force to investigate threats of violence against school board members. Fox News first reported the details of the emails.
“The allegation that Secretary Cardona requested the NSBA’s involvement is jaw-dropping, and should be investigated immediately. American parents deserve to know whether the head of the U.S. Department of Education sought to silence their voices—and if so, he must be held accountable,” said Parents Defending Education president Nicole Neily.
Slaven and National School Boards Association president Viola Garcia called on President Joe Biden in the Sept. 29 letter to deploy the FBI and use the Patriot Act to investigate threats made against school board members as acts of “domestic terrorism.” Attorney General Merrick Garland formed a federal task force to investigate threats against school boards on Oct. 4.
Parent groups and Republicans blasted Garland over the decision, saying they were concerned that the task force would have a chilling effect on parents’ dissent against local school board policies. Many parents across the country have voiced concern over school districts’ teaching of left-wing ideologies, such as critical race theory.
