Among the accusations Republican senators are leveling at the Bondi hearing is one involving FBI investigations of parents at school board meetings.

In his opening statement, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, read a laundry list of alleged abuses by the Justice Department; chief among them was that the FBI had “opened dozens of investigations into parents who voiced their concerns at school board meetings regarding curriculum choices and Covid-19 mandates.”

In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo ordering federal law enforcement officials to meet with local authorities around the country to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats” against education personnel after a number of protests, attacks on social media and other actions targeting school officials over Covid policies, school curriculum, critical race theory and other issues.

Garland issued the memo after the National School Boards Association asked the Justice Department and the administration to address these issues. In its request, the association said such “heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism” — language it later apologized for in a statement.

But Garland’s memo specified concerns about “illegal” threats and harassment; it never equated parents to domestic terrorists. Ultimately, the FBI never investigated, arrested or charged a single parent in connection with school board meetings.

In a previous statement on the issue, the FBI said that Director Christopher Wray and other agency officials “have stated clearly on numerous occasions before Congress and elsewhere, the FBI has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be. Our focus is and always will be on protecting people from violence and threats of violence. We are fully committed to preserving and protecting First Amendment rights including the right to free speech.”