"Essentially over the course of a weekend": How the Garland memo went from NSBA letter to federal policy in five days

Federal agencies take months to issue routine guidance. The memo that put the FBI on the trail of parents at school board meetings took, by the Justice Department's own account, about a weekend.

That is one of the central findings of the 273-page "2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools," released this week by DOJ's Weaponization Working Group and dated Oct. 5. The report concludes that former Attorney General Merrick Garland's Oct. 4, 2021 memorandum "was produced in an incredibly short timeframe (essentially over the course of a weekend) and after significant conferral with White House officials, who themselves were in contact with the NSBA."

The emails reprinted in the report show what that weekend looked like.

The groundwork was laid at the White House. According to the National School Boards Association's own commissioned review, interim CEO Chip Slaven was in contact with White House senior adviser Mary Wall from Sept. 9, 2021, and sent her a summary of the planned letter on Sept. 21. On Sept. 22, a White House lawyer forwarded Slaven's email to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. ODAG lawyers struggled to find any federal crime in it. One wrote, "This is ridiculous." Associate Deputy Attorney General Kevin Chambers, who would draft the memo, called the conduct "mostly state/local."

On Wednesday, Sept. 29, the NSBA, based in Alexandria, sent its letter to President Biden. It asked for the PATRIOT Act to be considered and said parents' conduct "could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism." Its only Virginia example was the June 2021 Loudoun County School Board meeting where Scott Smith was arrested weeks after his daughter was sexually assaulted at school.

On Friday, Oct. 1, the pressure came on. A White House Counsel's Office lawyer told Chambers that others in government saw the issue "as fairly urgent." The deputy attorney general's chief of staff, Anita Singh, emailed staff seeking a response "ASAP" and "in the next couple of hours." Chambers, still "reluctant" to launch a task force, reached out to the FBI and the National Security Division about when school board threats might "rise to the level of Domestic Terrorism." An FBI official pushed back that this was "potentially dangerous ground" and that "[n]ot all who oppose school board actions or legislative decisions are Domestic Terrorists."

On Saturday, Oct. 2, Chambers told colleagues that an attorney general memo would pair school board threats with threats against election officials. Criminal Division lawyers revolted. Shortly after noon, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll wrote that if leadership did this, "they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force." Public Integrity chief Corey Amundson answered, "Exactly! Stupid, stupid, stupid." That afternoon Chambers circulated the drafts anyway: an attorney general memo and a "School Board Threats Response Strategy." That evening, Amundson warned the plan "will be viewed by many as a partisan exercise aimed at those who do not support the Administration." He also flagged threats against Loudoun parents that the draft ignored.

On Sunday, Oct. 3, a Civil Rights Division attorney weighed in. The "vast, vast majority" of the NSBA's incidents did not involve federal law, she wrote, and "almost all" were protected by the First Amendment. "It seems that we are ramping up an awful lot of federal manpower for what is currently non-federal conduct."

On Monday, Oct. 4, Chambers sent the final draft and a press release around for last "views/red-flag concerns." The memo was issued the same day. It ordered the FBI and every U.S. attorney to meet with local law enforcement within 30 days and open "dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response." DOJ's public affairs office made sure to email the NSBA's Slaven a copy. The FBI, by contrast, appears to have been blindsided. Asked whether he had known about the memo, Deputy Assistant Director Jay Greenberg answered, "Not in time to stop it." He later said the bureau "was caught off guard."

The next day, Oct. 5, President Biden personally called NSBA President Viola Garcia to thank her, according to the NSBA review.

Five days from letter to memo. Rep. Jim Jordan, at a June 2026 DOJ roundtable reprinted in the report, asked the obvious question: "When have you ever seen the federal government move that fast?" His answer was Virginia's 2021 governor's race. "They didn't want this guy to be governor of Virginia," he said of Glenn Youngkin. Ian Prior, a Loudoun parent who once worked in DOJ's public affairs office, put it more simply: "I worked at the Department of Justice. That doesn't happen."

The working group found "nothing" showing that department leadership "ever fully addressed" the objections raised that weekend. It called them "significant, nearly unanimous skepticism."

The NSBA apologized for its letter on Oct. 22, 2021. Attorney General Pam Bondi has since rescinded the memo. But in the meantime, the FBI built an "EDUOFFICIALS" threat tag and opened 25 assessments, and Loudoun parents learned what their own government thought of them.

All of it was set in motion in a single weekend.

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,

Loudoun County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Leesburg.