The powerhouse education policy organization Moms for Liberty has apparently struck a nerve with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after having proven itself a thorn in the side of the Biden Administration with its phenomenal success on behalf of parents’ rights. Indeed, the organization has been inciting ire and angst within the federal government for three years due to its rapid growth in membership (115,000 plus) and state chapters (45 and counting).

Last month, reports surfaced in conservative media that the DOJ’s “hate crimes” response unit was tracking the moms in the same way it tracks the Ku Klux Klan and other bonafide terrorist groups.

The Daily Wire broke the story after gnawing on it for at least a year, describing that it had gained access to “internal emails” which reveal how the DOJ’s “Community Relations Service” (CRS) has been tracking the Moms for Liberty’s movements.

The emails were obtained in response to a lawsuit filed by America First Legal on behalf of the Daily Wire, to compel the release of the information after the DOJ ignored Freedom of Information Act requests for the records. The emails show that the CRS “scoured the news” for articles “through Google and LexisNexis alerts” using key words; some associated with geographic locations such as “washington, dc n-word” and “washington, dc confederate flag.” CRS also tracked the group “alongside symbols such as the noose, the Confederate flag, and the swastika.”

Among many others, the words and terms tracked by DOJ officials included “anti-Semite, bias, bigot, discrimination, hate speech, homophobia, islamophobia, moms for liberty, oath keepers, swastika, and white supremacy.” [Emphasis added.]

While the CRS purports to “prevent and respond to community tensions and hate crimes, bias, bullying, and discrimination” in a non-partisan manner, it supports the progressive agenda and has been labeled by conservatives as an arm of the Democrat Party. While it discredits grassroots, pro-parent organizations like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, and others, it provides credibility to the far-left hate group Southern Poverty Law Center by relying on it for information. The Heritage Foundation, for one, has advocated for elimination of the CRS.

Manipulation and subversion

The Daily Wire described how CRS tracking and manipulation can subvert the will of the people when carried out by their elected public officials. One reason for tracking Moms for Liberty was to “identify school boards considering enacting conservative-leaning education policy.” For example, the emails show that when a Google alert triggered a story about the Virginia Department of Education releasing “new policies for transgender students,” the CRS swung into action.

Conciliation Specialist Hannah Levine wrote to school board members in Roanoke County, Virginia to offer the DOJ’s “services in conflict resolution,” except that there was no conflict. The problem for CRS and Levine was that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin “had drafted a ‘model’ policy that would prevent schools from gender-transitioning children without their parents’ consent, which school boards had the option to adopt.”

Since Youngkin “won twice as many votes” as his Democrat opponent in “deep-red Roanoke County, with similar results down-ballot,” the school board policy likely had many more supporters than detractors. “In a democracy,” noted the Daily Wire, “that means the locality had chosen to implement conservative policy. In the United States, schools are locally controlled. Yet CRS seemed to ask local school board members to defer to CRS because of ‘tensions’ between the elected leaders who had an overwhelming mandate, and a tiny band of leftist agitators.

“[CRS] then pressured school boards to defer to the DOJ to resolve the differences of opinion between duly-elected conservative officials and leftist activists, instead of enacting platforms they won elections on.”

There is no evidence that Moms for Liberty or any elected officials in Roanoke were doing anything “hateful” or wrong, but were supporting policies their voters expected them to implement. But the DOJ “seemed to be operating on the premise that either the Republican governor’s proposed policy was itself ‘hate,’ or that lawless leftist activists created ‘tensions,’ which opened the door to federal intervention designed to diffuse the tensions by appeasing them. Two leftist protesters were detained by police for allegedly disrupting a school board meeting on the topic by screaming.”

The emails further show that CRS pressured and pestered local people to accept their “services” using official doj.gov email accounts, even when those being pressured rejected the help. CRS “provided ideological ‘trainings’ such as ‘Transgender Training for Law Enforcement’” even while maintaining the lie that it was “a neutral arbiter on issues like Youngkin’s transgender policy.”

While the DOJ failed to comment on the media reports about the tracking, Moms for Liberty boldly rejected the intrusion, calling the Daily Wire’s findings “a new low for the Department of Justice.” Co-founder and spokeswoman Tiffany Justice said:

• We reject the notion that advocating for parental rights and the well-being of children is an act of hate and we call on the Department of Justice to clarify its position on this matter. The actions of the federal government should never infringe upon the rights of parents to engage in the democratic process.

Reason for concern

The DOJ may have reason for its apparent concern over the rise in grassroots parental pushback against the radical leftist agenda it evidently supports. And Moms for Liberty shows no signs of slowing down.

Among the high-profile conservative news outlets that echoed the Daily Wire’s exposure of DOJ’s spymails was Newsmax.com. Then in separate articles dated May 22, both the Associated Press and Newsmax and provided clues that may help pinpoint the real reasons the federal government appears to be seeking to discredit the parents’ rights movement in general and diminish the moms’ influence in particular.

The articles report that “Moms for Liberty plans to spend more than $3 million on a multi-state advertising blitz to increase its membership and engage voters before November, following through on a pledge it made last year to become more politically active across the country in 2024.”

Co-founder Tina Descovich said the new campaign “came about as investors have approached the group wanting to see it grow in specific states.” By law the organization, a federally recognized 501 (c) (4), is not required to disclose its funding, and Descovich declined to do so, saying merely that her group’s intention is to “grow more grassroots chapters,” for example in Georgia, where there are currently just seven Moms for Liberty chapters.

The ad push is quickly being expanded into Arizona, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, with additional growth planned for later this year in Michigan, Nevada — particularly Clark County, where Las Vegas is located — and Pennsylvania.

Although Moms for Liberty’s success in electing school board candidates during the most recent election cycle fell short of its outstanding previous wins, Descovich said negative stories about the group have not hurt its funding support.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘We’re not going to donate to you anymore because of these stories,’” she related. “Everybody understands that the work we’re doing is going to be under intense attacks and scrutiny.”

Indeed, it is, including by the U.S. Department of Justice. But the group plows forward, currently planning its annual Joyful Warriors National Summit in Washington, DC at the end of the summer. In addition, Moms for Liberty has announced on Instagram that it will be a coalition partner at the 2024 March for Kids on August 31, also in the nation’s capital.

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