Jim Jordan subpoenas attorney general, FBI chief, education secretary
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan subpoenaed the heads of the Justice Department, FBI and Education Department for documents related to school board meetings.
WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, issued subpoenas Friday to the heads of the Justice Department, FBI and Department of Education seeking documents related to local school board meetings.
The subpoenas — which Jordan noted are his first as chairman sent to the Biden administration — require Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to turn over all documents on the topic by March 1.
"Since October 2021, Judiciary Committee Republicans have sent over one hundred letters to Biden Administration officials requesting answers about how the Administration used federal counterterrorism resources against American parents," Jordan's office said Friday.
Jordan, who also chairs a new subcommittee on the "Weaponization of the Federal Government," said whistleblowers have claimed that the FBI's counterterrorism and criminal divisions "created a specific threat tag for school board-related threats and even opened investigations into parents simply for speaking out on behalf of their children." Republicans outlined those claims in a November report on the "politicization" of the DOJ and FBI.
School board meetings across the country have intensified and grown violent in recent years, especially since the Covid pandemic began. In October, a man was recorded on video saying LGBTQ people “deserve death” during a school board meeting in Arkansas where several anti-LGBTQ policies were passed. In January 2022, a Virginia woman was charged after she appeared to threaten school board officials while they met to vote on whether to lift a mask requirement.
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