'I've Got That Letter Here!': Jim Jordan Calls Out Controversial School Board Memo

 

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) called out the controversial memo on school boards and parents.

Jim Jordan said: I think the chairman last fall October 21st, when the attorney general was in front of this committee we asked him What was the basis for the very first sentence in your memorandum of October 4th, 2021? So the memorandum he had sent out just two and a half weeks prior to testifying in front of us. 

The first sentence reads in recent months there's been a spike in harassment intimidation threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff we asked him What was the basis there? What investigation? What data?  What did you look at? How did you make a determination to put that as the very first sentence in your memorandum telling the FBI to set up a snitch line on parents? What was the basis for that anyone remembers his answer? 

He said, it was the letter sent from the school boards association five days earlier. The letter that talked about using the patriot act to treat parents as domestic terrorists. The letter that the school boards association has since apologized for, in fact, I got that letter here somewhere that they sent to us, where they say we regret and apologize for the letter, they've had all kinds of states leave their association. 

We had the whistleblower, the gentleman from North Carolina just brought up the whistleblower. Who sent us the communication sent to FBI agents around the country. That says we asked that your offices apply the threat tag to investigations and assessments for the very purpose that. 

The attorney general said came from that the first sentence, that he had in his memorandum came from the school board association, which apologized and took back their letter. And all this amendment says is that the threat tag doesn't use federal funds, for that threat tag if moms and dads are showing up at school board meetings and voicing their concerns about the upbringing and education of their kids.

Our concern is Why the democrats are opposed to this this seems so straightforward? I mean we shouldn't we should. The organization that prompted this whole thing started this whole thing, actually I think it may have been the other way around, it may have been actually the government going to them the Biden administration going to the school board and so she's asking them to send the letter as a pretext to do what they want to do.  

We don't know that for sure but we have seen emails that suggest that this is a simple amendment, we should just take this straightforward, should be easy, should be a unanimous voice, and the vote should be part of the bill. Jim ended his remarks with this line.