With the Midterm Elections only a few months away, the nation's attention is starting to focus on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and what role the DOJ might play in this election to help Democrats.  Just over a year ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced his intention to double the number of lawyers working in the Voting Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, which is charged with enforcing voting laws.  With a couple of well-publicized exceptions (e.g., Georgia, Texas, and Arizona), so far the DOJ has been relatively quiet.  Is this the calm before the storm?

On his Birthday today, Justice Clarence wrote the decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, which clarified that the Second Amendment applies to all Americans.  As Professor Johnathan Turley wrote:

In what will likely prove one of the most important decisions in his illustrious career as a conservative jurist, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 6-3 majority opinion that brought greater clarity to this and future challenges under the Second Amendment. . . .

Thomas rejected the two-part analysis used by lower courts and held that the presumption must be in favor of the individual right to possess a handgun in public like other rights in the Bill of Rights. The Court held “consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Accordingly, “because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.”

On Wednesday, Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson disclosed in a bombshell letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that a whistleblower has come forward revealing that the FBI has "labeled at least dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division to assess and track investigations related to school boards."

🚨 SMOKING GUN: Whistleblowers reveal the FBI has labeled dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division pic.twitter.com/uDMd7x1no3

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) May 11, 2022

It's been several weeks since Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a controversial memorandum that many see as a move to intimidate parents who are concerned about what is going on in their local school districts. Despite request after request from Congressional Republicans, Garland and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have declined to provide documentation about the role the National School Boards Association (NSBA) played in the DOJ's directive. The Washington Examiner reports:

Earlier today, Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing for the Department of Justice. Both Ranking Member Grassley and Chairman Durbin noted that Garland has been less than responsive to requests for information from Congress.

The scandal behind the most infamous attack of the Democrats' and Biden Administration’s war on the First Amendment grew larger today.  In a letter today by 17 state attorneys general to the National School Boards Association, whose letter allegedly started the effort of the Department of Justice to label parents speaking at school board meetings “domestic terrorists,” notes:  

Recent reporting and e-mails not only make clear that NSBA likely colluded with the Biden administration, but also suggest that Biden administration officials may have participated in the development of the September 29 letter and asked you to sign it. In your e-mail to the NSBA Board dated September 29, 2021, you specifically stated that you had been “in talks over the last several weeks with White House staff, they requested additional information on some of the specific threats, so the letter details many of the incidents that have been occurring.”

We previously wrote about how the Pennsylvania School Boards Association is speaking out against Attorney General Merrick Garland kowtowing to the unfounded accusations and demands by the National School Boards Association.  A resulting Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum raised the specter of parents exercising their First Amendment rights at school board meetings being treated as domestic terrorists. Now, other stated-based school boards have joined Pennsylvania.

At least 11 state school board organizations are distancing themselves from a National School Boards Association letter asking President Joe Biden to take action against parents protesting progressive school policies.  . . .

The letters from the state groups recognize the importance of local boards’ role in educating children, with the Virginia group urging educators and school boards to work together and to listen to parents for the “safety and achievement of all students.”

The blowback from the Biden Justice Department's latest overreach has now reached the state level.   

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association tells Delaware Valley Journal it disavows a letter last week from the national school board group asking that parents protesting education policy be investigated as possible violent domestic terrorists, That letter resulted in swift action from Attorney General Merrick Garland — and a swift backlash from advocates of parental rights and opponents of federal interference in local law enforcement.

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell sent a scathing letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland today, criticizing a memo released by the DOJ earlier this week which announced the DOJ would start investigating parents that are raising concerns about the education of their children at local school board meetings.  It's clear that Biden's DOJ thinks parents don't have the right to push back on taxpayer-funded schools that are teaching children Critical Race Theory and giving minors access to disturbing content.

On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the U.S. Department of Justice would be using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to sue the state of Georgia over its 2021 election law package recently signed into law. As reported by Margot Cleveland for The Federalist:

First, the DOJ complains that Georgia prohibits the distribution of unsolicited absentee ballot applications then also bars private organizations from distributing duplicate absent ballot applications. Next, the DOJ challenges Georgia’s requirement that in requesting an absentee ballot that voters either provide their driver’s license number or present a photocopy of another form of identification — but even a utility bill would suffice.