DOJ report says 2021 school-board memo grew out of White House pressure, with Loudoun case at its center

The U.S. Department of Justice this week released a 273-page report concluding that former Attorney General Merrick Garland's October 2021 memorandum on threats against school officials resulted from pressure by Biden White House officials. According to the report, the memo was issued over objections from attorneys inside the department. The report opens its account with events at a Loudoun County School Board meeting.

The report is titled "The 2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools" and is dated Oct. 5. It was produced by the department's Weaponization Working Group, which Attorney General Pamela Bondi established after President Donald Trump's January 2025 executive order on "weaponization" of the federal government. Bondi formally rescinded the Garland memo, and the report says the policies implementing it have been terminated.

The report traces the memo to a Sept. 29, 2021 letter from the National School Boards Association to President Joe Biden. The Alexandria-based group asked for federal help with what it described as threats against school board members, and it said some conduct could be treated as "the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism." The letter's only Virginia example was a Loudoun County School Board meeting where, it said, "an individual was arrested, another man was ticketed for trespassing, and a third person was hurt." The NSBA's board apologized for the letter on Oct. 22, 2021, saying "there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter."

The report identifies one of those Loudoun parents as Scott Smith, who was arrested at the June 22, 2021 board meeting. Weeks earlier, in May 2021, his daughter had been sexually assaulted in a girls' restroom at Stone Bridge High School. The report says Smith was arrested and prosecuted after challenging school officials at the meeting, and that the prosecution "only ended after he received a gubernatorial pardon" from then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In roundtable testimony reprinted in the report, Smith gave his own account: deputies arrested him after he got into a confrontation with another attendee. The report also quotes then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler telling that meeting that "the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist." A student was convicted in the assault in October 2021.

Garland issued his memo on Oct. 4, 2021, five days after the NSBA letter. It directed the FBI and U.S. attorneys to convene meetings with local law enforcement within 30 days and to open "dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response."

Most of the report draws on internal department emails, which it says were cleared for release. According to the report, attorneys in several divisions doubted that the conduct described by the NSBA was federal at all. A Civil Rights Division attorney wrote that "almost all" of the cited incidents were protected by the First Amendment and that the department was "ramping up an awful lot of federal manpower for what is currently non-federal conduct." Criminal Division attorneys objected to pairing school-board threats with election-official threats. One of them wrote that if leadership went ahead, "they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force."

The report says the FBI also had reservations. When asked whether he knew about the memo before it was issued, an FBI deputy assistant director replied, "Not in time to stop it."

The working group concluded that the memo was produced "essentially over the course of a weekend" after "significant conferral with White House officials, who themselves were in contact with the NSBA." It found "nothing" showing that department leadership "ever fully addressed" the internal concerns. The report does not include responses from Garland or the other former officials it names.

The report says the FBI opened 25 "Guardian" assessments related to school board threats under a threat tag called "EDUOFFICIALS." One assessment became a full investigation. The working group says it is "unaware of any prosecutions" that resulted.

The department lists five steps it plans to take. Parents who were the subject of an assessment will be offered a chance to review it. A disclaimer will be added to those files. Files will be reviewed and a formal apology issued where constitutional violations are found. The National Association of School Resource Officers will receive a $1.5 million grant for training on parents' rights. The Office of Justice Programs will fund additional training for teachers and staff.

The report also includes a transcript of a June 11, 2026 roundtable at the department, where Youngkin, Smith and Loudoun County parent Ian Prior spoke. It reprints in full an October 2025 federal lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board and five former school officials. Those allegations have not been proven in court.

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.