During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) grilled Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco over the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent memo instructing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to more closely monitor local school board meetings. Senator Hawley said the administration is attempting to chill the speech of parents concerned about their children and making unprecedented use of the FBI.
Senator Hawley said, “All I can say is this is truly extraordinary. I think you know it is. It’s unprecedented and you can’t point to a single instance where anything like this has happened before. And I think parents across this country are going to be stunned to learn, stunned, that if they show up at a local school board meeting, where they have the right to vote, and you are attempting to intimidate them, you are attempting to silence them, you are attempting to interfere with their rights as parents and, yes, with their rights as voters. This is wrong. This is dangerous. And I cannot believe that that an Attorney General of the United States is engaging in this kind of conduct.”