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FIRST ON FOX: Moms For Liberty Founder Tiffany Justice plans to blast the Department of Justice for targeting parents after the Judiciary Committee’s report revealed that the Biden administration in collusion with the NSBA "misused" authorities to investigate parents at school board meetings.
The Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, chaired by Congressman Mike Johnson, R-La., is holding a hearing Thursday at 2:00 p.m. ET titled, "Free Speech: The Biden Administration’s Chilling of Parents’ Fundamental Rights."
The founders, Justice and Tina Descovich, created the parental rights group to advocate for parental rights at all levels of government, according to their website. The group was founded in Florida by parents who opposed mask mandates for children in school due to the coronavirus pandemic. Justice, in particular, has been a vocal opponent of government-backed mask mandates and teachers' unions.
"Parents watched in horror as teachers unions fought to keep schools closed. We watched as our children struggled with depression and anxiety, their development regressing at every turn. Nationally, parents were asking when and how we had become a nation more concerned with protecting adults than children?" Justice wrote in her testimony, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.
Justice went on to say, "Parents who took up this right were silenced, then the premier law enforcement agency of the United States of America, the FBI, was used as a weapon by the DOJ against parents who dared to voice their concerns at the most local level - their school board."
Justice’s testimony comes after the release of the Judiciary Committee's report on findings of how the Biden administration misused authorities to investigate parents who were vocal during school board meetings.
President Joe Biden speaks at the University of Tampa on Feb. 9, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The National School Board Association in September 2021 sent a controversial letter to the Justice Department which compared actions taken by frustrated parents at school board meetings to domestic terrorism.
The letter prompted the Department of Justice to launch an effort to combat what it said is an "increase" in "threats of violence" against school officials and teachers across the country.
In collaboration with whistleblowers and the NSBA-commissioned report, the Judiciary Committee found that the Biden Administration misused its authorities.
According to the Judiciary Committee Report, the Committee discovered that "the NSBA collaborated with the Biden White House to develop the language of the NSBA’s September 29, 2021, letter to President Biden urging the use of federal law enforcement and counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act, against parents."
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It also found that the NSBA shared a draft of the language of its letter with the White House, adding that no one raised concerns about "the reference to counterterrorism tools or the inclusion of the Patriot Act in the letter."
Furthermore, the report also found that Attorney General Merrick Garland established a task force to enforce "federal counterterrorism statutes to examine school board-related threats and highlighted the FBI’s National Threat."
Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before Congress. (Greg Nash/Pool Photo via AP)
One of the Judiciary Committee’s investigations found that an "FBI field office" interviewed a mom for allegedly telling a local school board "we are coming for you." The complaint, which came through a "snitch-line," alleged that the mom was a threat because of her affiliation with a "right-wing mom’s group" known as "Moms for Liberty" and because she "is a gun owner."
The Judiciary Committee’s report goes on to say that when the FBI interviewed the mom, she told the agent that she was "upset about the school board’s mask mandates and that her statement was a warning that her organization would seek to replace the school board with new members through the electoral process."
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The report goes on to list other examples of the FBI interviewing parents to assess whether they were engaged in terrorist activity. Per the report, one of the parents the FBI investigated challenged COVID-19 mask mandates.
Justice's testimony goes on to blast the DOJ for betraying the "trust of the American people."
"There must be accountability. Thank you again for bringing this to light," she said.
"While the FBI made phone calls to parents who spoke out at meetings and wrote memos calling concerned parents ‘domestic terrorists’ – I submit to you what the federal government was not doing was paying attention to the duty of schools to educate our children," she added.
Parents and community members attend a Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22, 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
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Since the pandemic, school board meetings have become battlegrounds between parents and school board officials. Parents across the country have protested controversial curriculum like critical race theory as well as the presence of certain books in public libraries.