{"id":117335,"date":"2026-06-17T12:24:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117335"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:24:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:24:28","slug":"117335","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117335","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cStupid, Stupid, Stupid\u201d: Justice Department Memo Further Tarnishes Record of Merrick Garland<\/a><\/p>\n

Internal emails were uncovered recently that cast a new, negative light on Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2019s record in targeting parents over school board controversies. The communications\u00a0show<\/a>\u00a0that 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 \u201cIf they do this, they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was public outrage, but Garland defended the action, declaring \u201cThe obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the outcry grew, the Biden Administration was forced into a retreat and an apology:<\/p>\n

\u201cOn 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.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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 \u201cincrease in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation\u2019s public schools\u201d by parents.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Newly released emails raised all the objections later made by critics after the policy\u2019s release. One deputy assistant attorney general wrote that:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s 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\u2019s like they\u2019ve affirmatively trying to make this thing not work and look political.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When officials said that the Biden Administration was about to create an \u201cAnti-MAGA Task Force,\u201d officials responded, \u201cExactly! Stupid, stupid, stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another principal deputy assistant attorney general wrote,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not do this. There is no conceivable connection to [public integrity] (indeed, I\u2019m not seeing a federal interest of any kind.). And if they\u2019re going to make the AG\u2019s memo to the field about this and election threats, I\u2019m going to strongly recommend that they not send it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Public Integrity section chief agreed, saying the memo could turn the Justice Department and the FBI into the \u201cthreat police\u201d and that it contained \u201cno limiting principle at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In 2022, I wrote a column titled \u201cThe Incredible Shrinking Merrick Garland<\/a>\u201d 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 \u201cimmaterial\u201d to the running of the department:<\/p>\n

\u201cGarland sometimes looks more like a pedestrian than a driver on decisions in his own department. Top positions were given to figures denounced as\u00a0far-left advocates<\/a>\u00a0on issues from\u00a0defunding the police\u00a0<\/a>to\u00a0racial justice.<\/a>\u00a0For the moderate Garland, these did not seem like natural choices.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Special Counsel Jack Smith took\u00a0a hatchet to preexisting DOJ policies and the First Amendment<\/a>\u00a0in 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 \u201cshock and awe campaign<\/a>\u201d against citizens who joined the January 6th protests, Garland remained passive.<\/p>\n

By 2023, I was writing columns that Garland had become an \u201cutter failure<\/a>\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201chands-on\u201d in his leadership style, Garland delegated authority to powerful subordinates, who carried out these measures with little apparent restraint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As discussed in my 2022 column, Garland seemed to morph with the character Scott Stuart in the cult classic,\u00a0\u201cThe Incredible Shrinking Man,\u201d\u00a0<\/a>in which\u00a0Stuart delivers\u00a0a strikingly profound line<\/a>: \u201cThe unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet \u2014 like the closing of a gigantic circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may be the final epitaph of Merrick Garland\u2019s record as United States Attorney General.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cStupid, Stupid, Stupid\u201d: Justice Department Memo Further Tarnishes Record of Merrick Garland Internal emails were uncovered recently that cast a new, negative light on Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2019s record in targeting parents over school board controversies. The communications\u00a0show\u00a0that various Justice officials raised alarms over the effort pushed by Democratic allies and the National Association for … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-goobermint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117336,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117335\/revisions\/117336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}