Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Wednesday called on the Justice Department to investigate a former school board president who allegedly kept a dossier of personal information on parents opposed to critical race theory and mask mandates.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Mr. Brnovich said the recent “disturbing trend” of school boards “encroaching” on parents’ constitutional rights had reached Arizona.
“A dossier containing information on those who wish to participate in their children’s education and peacefully petition their government should concern all Americans of good conscience,” he wrote.
Jann-Michael Greenburg, who was voted out on Monday as president of the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board, reportedly stored the dossier on a Google Drive.
The Google Drive, which included information on targeted parents’ children, had files labeled “SUSD Wackos” and “Anti Mask Lunatics” along with others cataloging the online internet activities of the parents in an opposition research format, according to multiple news reports in Arizona.
The drive’s settings were set to public, allowing anyone with access to the link to view it and its contents, including parents’ financial documents, social security numbers and divorce papers.
Mr. Brnovich demanded the Justice Department investigate whether Mr. Greenburg violated the Constitution by depriving a person of a right or privilege under the color of law, and if he misused school resources to compile the dossier in violation of the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act.
“There is no place in America under fundamental concepts of liberty wherein parents should be surveilled, threatened, and intimidated for asserting their constitutional rights and raising concerns about their children’s education,” Mr. Brnovich wrote.
Clashes between parents and school boards have become a political inferno across the country, with the White House and Justice Department under fire from conservatives for colluding with the National School Board Association to label angry parents as “domestic terrorists.”
Mr. Brnovich’s call-to-action came the day after Republican lawmakers said a whistleblower sent them an internal FBI email that shows the counterterrorism unit is monitoring parental threats against school board members.
According to the email, the assistant directors of the FBI counterterrorism and criminal divisions told agents to track the threats in response to Mr. Garland’s Oct. 4 memo directing the bureau and other federal agencies to address a “disturbing spike” in threats against school board members and other school officials.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in a letter this week to Mr. Garland that the email “calls into question the accuracy” of his testimony that the department was “not using counterterrorism statutes and resources to target concerned parents at school board meetings.”
An FBI spokesperson told The Washington Times the bureau “has never been in the business of investigating parents who speak out or policing speech at school board meetings, and we are not going to start now.”
The FBI’s focus, the spokesperson said, is on both “violence and threats of violence that potentially violate federal law.”
“The Criminal Investigative Division and the Counterterrorism Division share responsibility for violent threats,” the spokesperson said. “But before either division can open an investigation there must be information indicating the potential use of force or violence and a potential violation of federal law.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request Wednesday for comment on Mr. Brnovich’s letter.
• Emily Zantow can be reached at ezantow@washingtontimes.com.
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