Five years later, the Loudoun dad behind the NSBA's Virginia example gets his say at Main Justice

In the fall of 2021, Scott Smith was a Loudoun County plumber whose daughter had been sexually assaulted in a girls' restroom at Stone Bridge High School. By his account, he was also being asked by a reporter how it felt to be called a domestic terrorist.

This week the U.S. Department of Justice put his story on page four of an official report.

"The 2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools," released by DOJ's Weaponization Working Group and dated Oct. 5, uses Smith's case to open its account of how former Attorney General Merrick Garland came to issue his October 2021 memo on school-board "threats." The report says the parents the National School Boards Association "described as potential domestic terrorists included Scott Smith." It also reprints the testimony Smith gave at a DOJ roundtable on June 11.

The facts laid out in the report are hard to read. According to the report and the federal lawsuit it reprints, Smith's 15-year-old daughter, a student with disabilities, was assaulted on May 28, 2021 by a male student wearing female attire. Under Loudoun County Public Schools policy or practice, the report says, that student was allowed into the girls' restroom. The report says Superintendent Scott Ziegler notified the School Board the same day.

Less than a month later, at the June 22, 2021 board meeting, Ziegler said: "To my knowledge, we don't have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms. … the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist." The report says Ziegler "brazenly" made the statement.

Smith was arrested at that meeting. Telling his own story at the roundtable, he said a local activist berated his wife and threatened to destroy the family's plumbing business on social media. "I'm a father. I lost my temper like any human would," he said. He said deputies grabbed him from behind, took him to the ground and handcuffed him, leaving his face bloodied, while his wife shouted that their child had been raped at school.

Smith said photos of his bloodied face went viral. The NSBA's Sept. 29 letter to President Biden cited Loudoun as its only Virginia example: "an individual was arrested, another man was ticketed for trespassing, and a third person was hurt." Five days later, Garland issued his memo.

"Think about that staggering moral failure of a timeline for a moment," Smith told DOJ leaders. In his view, the school system had covered up an assault on a minor. Instead of investigating that, he said, "a weaponized local prosecutor and the federal apparatus combined forces to target me."

The boy was convicted in October 2021. The lawsuit alleges that by then the school system had moved him to Broad Run High School, and that he sexually assaulted another girl there on Oct. 6, 2021. Smith's prosecution dragged on until then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin pardoned him. Smith told the room the pardon cleared his record but "Didn't get paid back for that though. All the legal bills."

He also described what the Garland memo did to Loudoun's civic life. "The school board meetings went from standing-room-only, 3-400 people, to just a handful appearance after that Memo came out," he said. "Memos carry weight."

Youngkin, seated at the same table, told Smith that "Fathers hold you as a hero." He said Loudoun in 2021 had made "Virginia Ground Zero for parent's rights."

Then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has since become attorney general, responded directly. "It doesn't help you to apologize, but I will," he said.

The report lays out what DOJ plans to do. Parents who were the subjects of FBI "Guardian" assessments under the Garland memo will be offered a chance to review them. Files will be checked for constitutional violations, and the department will issue formal apologies where violations are found.

Smith, for his part, asked for more. "Today I'm asking President Trump to make this a priority of his Administration, to hold those responsible for the Memo fully accountable," he said. "They have no place in your DOJ."

He closed with words every Virginia parent should hear. "A governor's pardon can erase a criminal record. An election can unseat a bad prosecutor. But none of that erases the trauma of what my daughter went through."

He did add, "My daughter's doing pretty well."

The school officials Smith blames have not had their day in court yet. The report reprints a 2025 federal lawsuit against Ziegler, four other former LCPS officials and the School Board, and its allegations remain unproven. But on the question this report set out to answer, DOJ has now put its findings in writing. It says it is "inappropriate to suggest that a category of political speech—especially a category implicating the parent-child relationship—violates, or comes close to violating, federal criminal law."

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.