American Thought Leaders - Surveilled, Silenced, and Smeared: How Parents Became ‘Domestic Terrorists’ | Kelly Walker and Sam Sorbo

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Kelly Walker, a local coffee shop owner in Tucson, Arizona, never imagined how his world would be turned upside down when he started speaking out publicly against COVID-19 mandates and the harm to children.He and Sam Sorbo are cofounders of the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance. They have put together a report detailing alleged actions taken by local authorities to censor, surveil, and pressure parents who protested policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.Editor’s Note: Kelly Walker previously has done work for The Epoch Times as a freelance marketing writer. Sam Sorbo previously hosted a show on EpochTV called School’s Out with Sam Sorbo. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

We're getting death threats, threats to kill my children. We're getting doxed. Our employees were terrified. Kelly Walker, a local coffee shop owner in Tucson, Arizona, never imagined how his world would turn upside down when he started speaking publicly against the COVID-19 mandates and the harm to children. It is astonishing to me that our governments would prioritize targeting parents that our governments would prioritize targeting parents over border crossings, for instance, fentanyl abuse. In this episode, we're sitting down with Kelly Walker and Sam Sorbo, co-founders of the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance, PDJA. They have put together a dossier detailing actions taken by local authorities to censor, surveil, and pressure parents who protested policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They claimed that three large fathers had stormed the school. They made us out to be the worst kind of terrorists. I got sentenced to 100 days in jail and $10,000 in fines. I was told I had to scrub my social media and be quiet. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Sam Sorbo, Kelly Walker, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Sam Sorbo, Kelly Walker, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thanks for having us. Great to see you, Jan. Quite an astonishing story, Kelly. I think we should

just start there. Tell me what happened to you over the last few years. Sure, I'd be happy to. And we're sort of using my story as a case study for what a lot of parents endured. I moved my family from Bend, Oregon to Tucson, Arizona. In 2017, we had experienced a certain type of radicalism there, particularly within the schools, persecution

for our views and beliefs. So part of the reason we moved to Tucson, I had been to Tucson many times, was to start a new life, really have a quiet life, and boy did we fail miserably in having a quiet life. We ended up opening a family coffee shop. We put a lot of what we had into it, you know, clean out our savings, and things were going great. We opened it in October of 2018. I have a part of what we had into it, you know, clean out our savings. And things were going great. We opened it in October of 2018. I have a part of my background is in marketing and our branding was was excellent.

It was called Viva Coffee House, and it very quickly became a community hub. We had a children's area. We had events. We would do superhero events. I was Captain America. And it was just a lovely place. And then came this moment. I remember I was getting ready to go into the shop and somebody said, we're gonna be locked down.

You're not gonna be able to go anywhere. And I thought, what is this? Well, at the time I had been working as editor-in-chief for a medical publication for a national medical education company. And so I was actually, part of my job was to work with some of the nation's top doctors. One of them was actually a colleague of Fauci. I would watch these lengthy webinars and part of my job was to then write continuing education

questions for doctors, dentists, other healthcare practitioners across the country. So I was in this interesting position of being somewhat of a subject matter expert and also running a local business. And I was astonished at the approach. And I'll say this, everyone who was in this conversation early on said the same thing. This is going to be a relatively minor virus that's mainly going to affect people with pre-existing conditions, advanced age, and so on. It's not going to be dangerous to children.

And then I watched in horror as it became political. And I remember one of the webinars, the doctor did a whole webinar on hydroxychloroquine and how effective it was, case studies. And it was, I understood the science. I said, this is great. This is a therapeutic. Of course, I'm following one of the nation's top doctors. And then two weeks later,

after Donald Trump endorsed hydroxychloroquine, I watched it change. And the very next webinar, the same doctor came in and ridiculed hydroxychloroquine. I watched it change and the very next webinar the same doctor came in and ridiculed hydroxychloroquine and my wife came into the room after the webinar and she said I was like a shade of gray or white and just flushed and I said I think I've witnessed a crime against humanity because I watched a cover-up and at this point I had no political motive. I just I knew what the truth was about it. I knew I had a good

idea of you know they had the the genome mapped of the virus. They knew so much about it. And then I saw that political fight bleed over into the business world and I remember going into the coffee shop one day and I pulled up our social media and I just noticed just this flood of negative comments, fake reviews. Your coffee tastes like expletive and you're a white supremacist and all these things. Because you decided to stay open?

Is this, I'm trying to see why all of a sudden would there be this. Good question. Part of it was because I was going on social media trying to share the science that I was getting at work. And I got this response that just floored me because I wasn't partisan, I wasn't political. And I got people just being abusive. But also, our coffee shop, we were, we held a Back the Blue event, we had the American flag in our window. We obviously were not far left. I'd say we were neutral, but you know, conservative. We do embrace those values. And what happened, we found out people started sending me screenshots showing that we were on the Pima County,

they dubbed it the Wall of Shame. What does that you say? Well, the Pima County set up the system where anybody could go out to any business and if they felt they weren't keeping the mandates following the resolution, they could report you. And for the record, we never failed a health inspection. We did everything by the letter, but we also gave people the freedom we said,

because the county resolutions, right on the title it said, if 10 foot spacing can't be maintained, or six foot spacing can't be maintained, the 10 comes in, they said, parties of 10 or less, you can, you can sit together without masks. The way we ran our business was you're an adult, we respect your decisions, if you choose to wear a mask great, if you choose not to respect these other people where they're at. So I thought well why are we on this county wall of shame? We just passed our inspection and the inspector gave us a few items, you know, do this, put these stickers up here. We did that great. And

so I emailed the County Board of Supervisors and I said I understand you've put us up as non-compliant but but we are compliant. And I got a message back from some administrator saying well we can take it down within a couple weeks. I said are you kidding me? We're getting death threats, threats to kill my children. We're getting doxed. Phone rings. An 18-year-old barista picks up the phone.

She's calling and effing C. You can fill in the blank. Our employees were terrified. We had people say, we're coming in with masks and we're watching you. My wife was afraid to let the children go out and play in the yard. So I ended up getting invited to the Board of Supervisors meeting by one of the, there were two Republicans, the three Democrats, and one of the Republicans invited me. And it was interesting because all the meetings before that one were virtual. All the meetings after that one were virtual. This particular one,

we were going in the elevator up to the supervisor's office and they said, oh they said it's going to be live. So we go back down the elevator. I go in. I did not want to wear a mask because I promised myself, look I know the science, this is ridiculous, I'm not going to do this. You know, ask me to wear a pink tutu.u I'm not gonna wear a pink tutu. I tried everything I could to get in that room without a mask and they wouldn't let me and I said what will you do if I walk in without a mask and they don't only had six foot spacing between chairs It was probably 20 feet. I kid you not and they said well, I'll arrest you. I said, all right

I'll wear a mask and I put it down here. I said, all right, I'll wear a mask. And I put it down here. I did everything I could because I had promised myself, this to me is a sign of oppression because it means you're using pseudoscience and you're forcing me to play the game. So I went in and sat down and a couple of people got up and spoke.

You had three minutes to speak publicly. It came up to my turn and I got up to the speaking stand. I had sent my notes of what I was going to say beforehand and I just started reading these comments that my wife and children in the public had to see. I didn't delete the expletives. I thought, you know, if we have to see this, you're going to experience it. Within 30 seconds, and you can see the video, you can go to realfreedomtalk.com,

you can watch the video. Within 30 seconds, they had three sheriff's officers surrounding me, handcuffed me. I'd never been handcuffed. I hadn't even had a speeding ticket since probably, you know, early 20s. Model citizen kind of thing. And I was just shocked. And my approach was, you all work for me, we pay your salaries. And I said, I have a right to speak.

And I stood there and I was just holding onto the speaking stand because it was, you know, I'm having anxiety here. I don't know what's going on. And the officer who was arresting me said, you are resisting. I said, you're violating my civil rights. He said, you're resisting. I said, I'm not resisting. I'm just strong. I didn't want to always say that people picked up on that afterwards. I said, oh, that's awesome. What I was really saying was, you're not going to move me till I want to be moved because I'm holding on for dear life because that afterwards. I said, oh that's awesome. What I was really saying was, you're not gonna move me till I want to be moved because I'm holding on for dear life. Because I thought I'm just gonna stand here and exercise my free speech. So I

was handcuffed, taken out of the room, booked for disorderly conduct. Can I ask what their reason was for arresting you? Well this is where it gets interesting. Did they give you a reason? We are arresting you because? It, the chair of the board of supervisors, he just waved his hand like off, off with him and they, they accused me of disorderly conduct. Obviously I wasn't directing these comments at them. Everybody knew that. And by the way, the arrest was released, I mean, dismissed just days later. But I went back into the booking room with the officer who put me in handcuffs.

And this is where it gets interesting, and to your question of why they did it. I actually said, why did you arrest me? He said, well, why did you do what you did? And I said, I had a right to speak. And he said, it was very interesting. He said, I'm in so much trouble with my wife. Like we're patriots and why did you do that?

And I said, well, why did you arrest me? He said, I don't want to lose my job. And I turned to him and I said, your job is to protect people like me from people like that. You swore an oath. This is wrong what happened. And at the time I'm worried about my wife and like she gonna be freaking out she's sitting there I didn't

know all this was televised I had no idea this was gonna happen she's at home saying oh man they poked a lion now so yeah I it was it was it was scary it was stressful but I know what this country is built upon. And respectfully, every one of those officers as they were booking me and everything, I gave them a lecture. I said, you know, you sign an oath to defend the Constitution, defend the people. You don't work for these guys. And it was very interesting, Jan, because as I was, after I was released, I went out. There was a woman who administered the parking lot. She was a parking lot attendant.

I speak Spanish. She spoke very little English, so we had this bilingual conversation. And she said, I saw what you did. I like you. And all the security people, the contract security people, they were applauding this. And it felt very much to me almost like

being in a king's court and all the servants are oppressed. They're under the thumb and they saw somebody. And again, I wanted a quiet life. I went back to our coffee shop. In walks Krista Reynolds. She wrote a book, you can find it on Amazon. It's called Born to War. It's her memoirs of growing up as a child in Nazi Germany and then experiencing the Berlin airlift and being in Berlin during that time. And she came in and she said, she stood up above me.

I was sitting, she said, Kelly, I am so afraid. This is just what it was like when I was a kid. And I stood up and I put my arms around her, little 84 year old woman. And I said, Christa, as long as there are men like me in the world, you're never gonna experience that again. She had had her daughter take the American flag off her house because she was afraid that men

with jackboots were gonna come by. And I mean, she was going, 84 years old, she's going back to that place emotionally where she was as a child. And the next day, because this was televised, I came to the shop and there were lines out the door. There were people who had traveled from other states. And it was overwhelming. I sat there at this round table inside the entrance and it was just a steady stream of people for days. And people are throwing cash on the table for legal defense.

People are praying over me. They're saying things like, God raised you up, and I'm just like, what? And one night, this is very personal, but after a day or two of this, I just went in the bathroom and I fell on my knees and I said, God, I know I could two of this, I just went in the bathroom and I fell on my knees and I said, God, I know I could hide from this. If I keep going, it's going to put a target on my chest.

And I said, I'll just, I'll give up to my life for these people, for my country. I spoke out, I opened up our shop, and I did become a target. He opened up the shop as a bit of a refuge. He kept the shop open, and people flocked to it because they saw opportunity, they saw solace, consolation, they saw like-minded people who were also being oppressed by the system and not understanding why. And yeah. And so then that created even a bigger target because then he was offering this to other people

and offering them some sanity in a world that was going insane. Our coffee bean supplier canceled us, said horrible things about us online. And we had trained our barista, my wife trained with them. And it was all because, and it wasn't like Ra Ra Trump or any particular party, it was just because we didn't fit the narrative. The county tried to shut us down. We had a lawyer who we later realized

was just trying to make a quick buck, get a settlement. He said, I have a settlement for you. I'm starting with a $2 million offer, but it comes with a gag order. And I looked at my wife and we just both shook our heads. We said, that's not why we're doing that. And so at a time where we very much needed it, because by this time-

I'm sure the gag order would include shutting down the shop. It could be, it could be. And I had already been politically canceled out of a very good job. We lost half our customer base just like that, because suddenly we're the grandma killers. And we turned down the $2 million

because we said that's not why we're doing this. We fired the lawyer. And I spent like three days taking in all these people's emotions or comments. There was an elderly lady, I remember we were outside talking and she had a black mask on as she took it off and she said, I don't care if this kills me, I've lived a good life, I'm not doing this anymore. And I thought what an act

of dignity and I knew it's not gonna kill her actually getting fresh airs, a good idea. We had two women, black Hispanic, who I'd been, they'd been following me on Instagram. They showed up in my shop. It turned out they were black lesbians. They had come down from Seattle. They'd been in the BLM thing, beating the drums, and they suddenly had an awakening. They said, this isn't about love, this is about hate. And I think seeing my message and what I went through they showed up in my shop and I just had this lovely conversation with them and I would have people from the left come in the shop and say we see what's happening and

They changed their view. So After that time we had People who didn't want to be forced to take a vaccine, military, medical, law enforcement come in and meet in our shop. We opened it up to people. I had a wife of a police officer sit down with me in tears and say, my kids are afraid dad's not going gonna come home. And by this point, you know, the anti-cop rhetoric was at a fever pitch. And at this point, we had so much community support.

I was in this odd position of saying, if your husband, if things get really bad and he's threatened, bring him here and we'll protect him. What a humbling thing. I mean, coffee shop owners saying, this will be a a refuge for you and that's how crazy it was. People think well Arizona's red may be purple. Tucson, not so much, Tucson is there are a lot, I'll just say there's a lot of radical people there, lovely people but also a lot of radical ideology. So one of the issues that came to the fore, and I'm a father

of five kids, I had three kids in the district, was the effect of the lockdowns of the forced masking on children. The school shut down, and my wife says for about two years, they canceled all the school, went online. At that time, we started homeschooling. And I know this gets into something you're very interested in, Sam. It looks like you'd like to say something about that. No, I want you to tell the story of standing up for the parents whose children became suicidal.

So yes, we were this community hub, and we had people come to us. By this time, people know who I am. Like, I'm the guy who stood up, right? And I accepted this role, and there was one man, his wife was legally deaf. He said, this is so hard for her because she read this lips.

And now her world is completely silent because she can't see people's lips. Somebody came and said, my teenage son is autistic, he cannot stand a mask on his face. Somebody threatened to kill him because he wasn't wearing a mask. People would come and say, my nephew committed suicide because of the isolation. There was a young man in our neighborhood and we heard he had gone out into the desert and shot himself in the head. We got more of the story as time went on.

Police came out to retrieve him and we just actually found out months ago that he was living in an abusive home and when the police came out, he said, I'm never going back again. I was writing peer-reviewed articles about how kids no longer had access to the people who would recognize abuse, the schools, the doctor, the dentist, and the stats bore it out that this these COVID policies were driving kids to suicide. So we're in the position I was communicating with the Vail School

District, other school districts, writing about it, pleading for them to listen to these people. We had a teenage boy who had been put on suicide watch from the isolation come and speak, and I had started Freedom Talk at this time, we did a Freedom Talk event. He was there. Krista Reynolds was there. She has a piece of the Berlin wall. And we allowed him a chance to speak. His family was there. I have the video. It was very touching at the end. Krista Reynolds is hugging him, this 84 year old woman encouraging him. He had been put on suicide watch because he was ostracized because he had nowhere to go. And it was amazing just being able to speak his piece. That young man started going to the school board meetings in Vail School District, but also other school boards. He became this champion and I watched

young people do that. And so I was getting ignored, rebuffed by the school districts. ignored, rebuffed by the school districts. And April 26, 2001, we had a big meeting in our coffee shop. Parents, parental advocates, and we all said we've got to get their attention on this. And so we all decided we're gonna go to this school board meeting the next day, April 27th. We went, there were over 200 parents there in the parking lot. Everybody was peaceful, we had signs. I got there, I was dressed in a suit and there's a particular reason why. The media immediately came over to me and the reason I dressed in the suit was I didn't want other people experiencing the harassment I had. I wanted, I didn't want the camera, look I've been in

marketing and advertising, I don't need a camera on me. But I wanted to protect them. So I took the interviews and one of the first questions I was asked was, we understand you're in charge or you're leading this and I said no, I'm not in charge. They said well who is? I pointed back to the crowd and I said they are. And I went in with some guys. By this time there were some retired military, active and retired law enforcement who just watched over our family because of the death threats. I went in, I was the first in the door. They tried to deny us access because we weren't wearing masks. We stood our ground. I said, that's the whole reason we're here. So they designated a room with monitors where we could go in, because that's dirty, non-maskers. They tried to cancel the meeting.

We respectfully said, no, you can't cancel it. They have to be heard. Finally, they started letting parents in. And when all the parents came in, I looked at the guys that came with me and I said, now's our time to go outside. This is their moment. And what happened, because I was outside in the parking lot hearing about this, was the board was nowhere to be seen. So somebody said, there's no quorum for the meeting. We're going to swear in a new board. And this went viral. This, I mean, Bongino show everywhere is, everybody saw it. And I know some of these things were going on in other school districts around the country,

but people saw that and they were inspired by it. And it was kind of known as the shot heard around the world. They tried so hard to shut down the meeting. Finally, they ended up letting a few people in. It was, and there had been a young man, 15, 16 years old, he had sent me his speech and he wanted to explain why his friend had committed suicide. He was denied the opportunity to speak.

And it wasn't until they tried to shut down the parents and silence them that people outside got angry. So you'd think that John Carruth, the superintendent of Vale Schools, would say, okay this is a concern, there's a significant number of people here, parents, who are concerned, let's sit down and work this out. No, he didn't. The school district took an adversarial approach. They went on a speaking tour in the local media claiming that parents had brought guns, that they were hostile and violent. And later on, I got emails through FOIA.

I did the research on this. And it was right at that time that the targeting of parents started because the National School Board Association wrote a letter to Joe Biden's office and Merrick Garland accusing parents of being hostile. They put them in this position of being so-called domestic terrorists. We'd had an incident where a young man was told to wear a mask,

and he made a stand at the school and he wouldn't leave. People came and protested. That was probably July or August. By September, this was happening again with another child. And the father called me up. He was very disturbed, kind of very anxious. And he said, Kelly, I want you to come here and witness this.

I need you to keep me calm. I need advice. They forced my son to wear a mask. He's healthy, they're going to quarantine him for the second or third time, missing out on his education. I'm going to call the police and report abuse because they forced him to wear a mask. He threw it in the nurse's trash. They made him retrieve the mask out of the dirty trash and put it back on his face. And I said, that's awful. I contacted another father.

So the two of us went to the school by invitation. Fortunately, we have a video of every second of it. We had an office meeting. I called state Senator Kelly Townsend. I called the sheriff's department. I said, what do I do? How do I help this father? And their advice was have him get documentation as to why they're quarantining his child. They are obligated to give him information on how to appeal this to the Superior Court. And so I turned to the father, and you can see all this on video, I turned to the father and I said this is the advice. They said, you do this and then you should leave. He had called the police, by the way, early on.

And he said, I want to report child abuse. I want you to come out here. And you can see this on the recording. The police said, you're probably right, but it's too controversial. We're not coming out. So a parent, they didn't know the circumstances reporting child abuse.

They refused to come out. They didn't know the circumstances reporting child abuse. They refused to come out. They didn't know the circumstances and they refused to come out on a call for child abuse. So we ended up leaving after we got the information. The school district, the principal, immediately went out to the media, which you've got to think there's going to be pending litigation or you're going to have to work this out. They claimed that three large fathers had stormed the school, tried to arrest the principal. They made us out to be the worst kind of terrorists.

They took selective clips of, because we were streaming it onto social media. And three days later, the police hunted down each one of those fathers, including me. I'm sitting on a Sunday night three days after having a movie night with my kids. There's a knock on the door. There's five Tucson police officers, five. And they delivered a paper ticket for misdemeanor three trespassing, which is literally in severity between a parking ticket and loitering. Five police officers. And I asked the police officer,

what's your probable cause? Why are you here? He didn't know. He had no idea. He's just following orders. So skipping some steps, we did end up going to court and there was a hearing with Judge Antonio Riojas for the father who had called me because the school tried to put protective orders against him. You can't come on school property. And I have that recording on our website of Judge Riojas comments because he watched the whole video and he said in that hearing, I watched the whole video. You never got up. You never raised your voice. All you did was disagree. And that's an issue because like this father is bigger than I am and I'm 6'4 And he said what you do was you disagreed and he turned to the school district people over there

And he said they get to disagree and you don't get to tell them how and he dismissed the protective order At no time and when I called the sheriff's department that talked to this lieutenant He said at no time did I feel like we needed to send someone out. There was no shutdown of the school. He said, I know, Kelly, I come into the shop. At no time did I feel like he was a danger. But it went out to the media that we were somehow these violent extremists. And I started getting calls from MSNBC, CNN, UK Daily Mail, all these places wanting to

interview me. And I knew by then, because I had been on interviews after the first arrest, I'm not going to get a fair shake here. So I just, I refused to talk to them. So they basically made up stories. I ended up in court. The other two dads, by the way, who didn't have a platform, weren't public figures, they got plea deals and they were let off with $250 fines and unsupervised probation.

After three days in court for misdemeanor three trespassing, they added on other misdemeanors. To you. On to me. And I got sentenced to 100 days in jail and $10,000 in fines. I was told I had to scrub my social media and be quiet. They tried to gag me and that didn't work well. But his crime rose to the exact same level of the other two fathers,

except that he had a coffee shop. And if I had done what they accused me of doing, I would have been charged with felonies. I would be in prison. They knew they couldn't. I mean, it was a stretch to get what they got. My lawyer before the trial said, hey, this is open and shut, Kelly.

You got the video? We had- And the other judge threw the whole thing out against the other guy. The other judge threw the whole thing out. But his judge, not so much. One of the charges that was added on was disrupting a school environment.

We had a memo that John Carruth sent to all the staff the day after this incident saying the school was not disturbed and the situation was resolved peacefully. The judge refused to admit that exculpatory evidence. I do want to point out that the other father had to go to court to defend his right to school property to see his son. That's not acceptable in the United States of America. So this was obviously very stressful for my family. I'm sitting in this pressure cooker just thinking, oh my

gosh, they're gonna try to put me in jail. I told the judge I'm the sole earner for my family. If I go to jail this is gonna put hardship on us. And my lawyer said, this is ridiculous. You can appeal. You're gonna win it hands down. This, I have never seen anything this ridiculous. And as you know, Jan, this magistrate had been recommended against by the Magistrate Commission because she was capricious in their words, abusive to parties and didn't even have a basic understanding of the law.

That's a direct quote. Yes, it is. So I'm facing, we've already been put through this, we already have legal fees we couldn't afford. Our business eventually had to close. That's a whole story in and of itself. We're in a tough place. For work and because people started going

after our children, we decided to move. And I had this period where I could have appealed and a law firm said, well, you need to put $10,000 down on a retainer. And I thought, oh man, like what do we live on? Because I have to start my life all over. They've destroyed everything. When we sold our house in Tucson,

we couldn't sell it because it had a lien on it. We had to get a lawyer and come up with money again to even be able to close our house. Then they took $10,000 out of our home sale against state law, the Arizona Homestead Act. This lawyer told them that and their response was, we don't care. So when they took that $10,000, I said, how am I supposed to afford another $10,000? So I started doing a study, and I took as my example

Samuel Adams and John Hancock. When Governor Gage put out a warrant for their arrest, they tried bribing Samuel Adams, they tried threatening him. Samuel Adams' response to Governor Gage when he sent out people to arrest him was, to Governor Gage when he sent out people to arrest him was, tell Governor Gage it is the advice of Samuel Adams to no longer insult the feelings of an exasperated people. I read about how the founding fathers said, you not only have the right to disobey unjust magistrates, you have the duty to do that. And I made this audacious decision.

I said, I'm not going to appeal. I'm not going to put my family through that. And I am not going to go to jail. And so I refused. And I said, instead, I'm going to go to the U.S. government and appeal it there. So I wrote an email to several members of Congress. Jim Jordan's office got back to me right away that he's that his chief of staff said, Representative Jordan's asked us to meet with you. He's put a team of four staffers on this. I ended up going with Seek Smith, the founder of Mom Army and Dad Army, and several other

people to Washington, D.C. to talk to representatives of five congressmen, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Andy Ogles, Paul Gosar, and Eli Crane. Eli Crane being from Arizona, Andy Biggs from Arizona. The Arizona congressman knew my story. I mean, I knew Eli Crane before he even ran for Congress. They knew it from back at the time we had the coffee house. So we presented all this information. By this time, I was researching how this had

happened all over the country to many parents. So I decided I'm not only going to stand up for myself, I'm going to stand up for all of these parents. So we had the meeting. Jim Jordan had made a report through the Judiciary Committee on the Special Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. A lot of great information in there. Fourteen attorneys general after that Garland memo

sent out a letter. And now you're talking about this October 4th memo. Yes. And so let me kind of color this a little bit because we've been talking while this is all happening. The Department of Justice issued a memo, which was later discovered on October 4th, about a, quote, disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff. Which didn't exist. They made that up. I defy them to show evidence of that spike, that so-called spike, of any harassment.

We've all seen the videos online. People reading pornographic books does not constitute harassment when those same books are available inside the schools. Right? And in fact, he was accused of harassment, basically. At his meeting, he was reading online commentary that was sent his way. So what we have is we have an example of the federal government trumping up, forgive me for the word, concocting a story about the citizens in order to then

unduly target them and punish them. And punishment is what this was. When they decided to categorize parents as domestic terrorists, there was a shift in attitude. There was a shift in approach. And it was a big shift. And what it did was it justified the petty tyrants that exist in the schools or in law enforcement or between the two with telling parents that they are no longer welcome in

the equation of their children's education. Now here's the problem with that. The number one predictor for academic success for a student is parental involvement. So anybody that stands in the way of parents being involved is actually seeking the destruction of that child's education. That's what they're doing. And I think perhaps we are too inured to really recognize that at this point, but we need to bring attention to that. And we need to bring parents back into the schools and make them more involved,

not less involved. So of course, you started the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance with a number of people who have been treated this way at various levels of severity, some closer to what you experienced, some less. Sam, we know each other through your years of advocacy around homeschooling and actually doing it. How did you get involved in this? This is clearly outside the homeschooling and actually doing it. And so how did you get involved in this? Because this is clearly outside the homeschooling purview. It's not. So the reason that I advocate home education is because parents are the number one indicator for academic success. So I seek to maximize that, make it all parenting. But that's

okay if you have to send your child to school, You still must be involved. And for them to have done this to Kelly and the other people that now are part of our dossier, we've amassed over 40 parents who were targeted this way, some more, some less. But they represent masses of other parents who then didn't stand up, didn't go to the school board meeting, didn't want to be arrested for no good reason. The reason that they arrested him was to make an example of him in front of everybody. And I think you set that up brilliantly because all the meetings before he showed up, they were online. All the meetings showed up, they were online. All the

meetings after that particular meeting were online. Why was the meeting that you were specifically invited to? Why was that meeting held in front of cameras, in person, so that they could make an example of him? But they picked the wrong guy. They picked the wrong guy. My wife would tell you in a positive way, I'm breathtakingly stubborn when I need to be. And here's the thing, these parents who have come forward, we're putting out a redacted version because some of the parents, pending litigation, whatever they need, that to be confidential. Some of them said, no, I want you to keep my name and I do not want to be redacted. But a lot of these parents, they've suffered so much, like Jennifer from Saurita, Arizona, who basically kind of the same thing, just wanted documentation as to why they were quarantining her healthy daughter.

They arrested her and handcuffed her, handcuffed her husband, and handcuffed their 16 year old daughter. She went to this kangaroo court. They put Jennifer in jail for five days, county jail, to quote unquote send a message and make an example of her. That's the mother. And so a lot of these... But they handcuffed a 16 year old daughter. If I may, a lot of these parents are still, they have trauma from this. A lot of them have lost hope that anybody's going to do anything. A lot of them, it's brave for them to come forward and tell their stories. Because they just, they want the government to do something, but they're cynical about it.

But when Sam and I have come along, a lot of people have said, you are answered prayer. And so our hope is that the administration will come forward, that President Trump will look into this an issue in executive orders to start restoring their lives to the level they were at before their own government waged war on them for being concerned parents. To answer your question, before I,

I've known Kelly for a while, but before I actually jumped into this, I was working on, not legislation, but advocacy to get parents more involved in schools without this. But when I saw this, I went, well, this is exactly the opposite. So if the schools are setting it up

to ostracize parents from schools, that's actually the destruction of children. And I can't sit by and watch that happen. Let's talk about in the griefs that I've read, you talk about violations of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments. Tell me about that. than the Fourteenth Amendment. Tell me about that. They have to do with illegal search and seizure and the right to due process. And most of these parents, certainly in my case, we weren't given a due process. We were railroaded. And some of these parents, yeah, they were like, I'm big, I'm well-spoken, all the rest. But there was a mom, for example, she was denied any chance to speak.

She kept trying to get on the public speaking list. In frustration after one meeting, after the meeting had adjourned, she said a couple words into the microphone, she was arrested. She was treated like a terrorist. So in our case, they deprived us of property, our home, they seized money. They're also stealing and taking away your reputation. When we moved to Tennessee, we couldn't even get an approval by a rental agency because that's a so-called criminal record.

And believe it or not, it was because of the one that had been dismissed. These parents wanted to be able to express themselves, and they wanted to be able to ask questions. And they've been disallowed both and punished for even contemplating speaking or asking questions. There's a father that we represent who is a lawyer, and he asked some pertinent questions, and they called his law office and told them that they had to fire him. The school board called a law office and

said you need to fire this guy. He needs to lose his job for questioning us. That's not acceptable. Who do they think they are? And it's still going on. Pam Bondi negated the memo, but it's... It's still going on. The parents who were intimidated continue to be intimidated. The parents coming in are intimidated. We have to turn this around because our schools are absolutely failing. And I put to you that because parents are the number one predictor of success,

because they've been so ostracized and it's culminated in this, right? This has been ongoing for a long time. That's the piece that we have to turn around in order to bring our schools back, in order to get education to children. And we cannot do it without the parental involvement. We cannot do it without that piece. Another theme that's emerging from me from listening to you both speak is just that there's this sort of mentality which has entered into the school systems that somehow the people in the school systems know better than the parents? I don't want to say,

is that correct? Because you're laughing already. Just tell me about that. Yes, parents are stupid. Why? Because they went to school. I mean, this is the irony, right? The parent who, forgive me, the parent who thinks that he can't homeschool because he graduated high school and doesn't know enough to teach a second grader, but sends his child into the same system that so-called educated him, and that system doesn't respect his knowledge base. The system that says we educate doesn't respect the knowledge of the parents that they've already educated. This is a big nut to crack, right?

This is a big problem that the schools have because we are where we are because of them. And the reason that the schools are failing, it's all, it's their fault. Who, who, who, who, who other fault is it? Who else contributed to the failure of the schools? And now the, now the teachers are undermining parents. They, we've got several pieces of legislation pertaining to teachers being able to transition minors without parental knowledge. We have teachers taking children to Planned Parenthood for abortions without parental knowledge. It's a takeover of the family, if you will, and it has to stop because parents are the

number one defenders for their children. What is it that you're hoping to accomplish? I understand you've had conversations with a number of officials working in this weaponization of government sphere. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about what, aside from speaking with Jim Jordan, the other Arizona lawmakers, and Rep. Congressman Ogles. You asked about the 5th and 14th Amendments. It is the duty and responsibility of the government to protect the life, liberty, and property, which was originally property got subbed for pursuit of happiness, of the citizens. That's their primary duty and reason for existing. When the government comes in and deprives you of those things unjustly, they have a duty

and a responsibility to restore those things. We're not talking about some nebulous concept of reparations. We're talking about restitution. We're talking about restoring these people and making them whole. So Sam, because Sam and Kevin were able to sit down with Vince Haley and because Sam's been in touch with Ed Martin. Vince Haley is the domestic policy advisor to the president. Ed Martin is over the weaponization working group under executive order from the president. And then through Pam Bondi, this issue is on their to-do list for the weaponization working group. What must happen, what has to happen if we're going to have a country, is we are asking respectfully

for President Trump to issue an executive order. We've brought the data, we've done the report, to restore these parents, to look at what has been lost. How do we restore these parents? Reputation-wise, monetarily, I hate to say that because none of these parents want to get rich. I mean, if they want to do lawsuits, they can. What we want, and speaking for my family, is I want to be restored to the level of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness I had

before my own government went to war against me. I look, I'm 55 years old, my wife and I are starting over again as if we're newlyweds. My children are wonderful and beautiful. At a deficit. But we're at a deficit. With an arrest of a record. And three kids. And so restitution is really what this is about. But it's also about moving forward. So the whole tone was set by that memo that Merrick Garland issued.

And we need to reset the tone with a memo issued by the White House, right? An executive order, perhaps a ceremony to recognize that parents are intrinsic to the education of their children. Sam refers to the president as the parent in chief and she brought this great concept I just thought man you hit the nail on the head Sam. She said these parents who were demonized they need to be honored now because they did the right thing. They had the courage to step up at a time when it was most needed when courage was in short supply. They

did the right thing they were punished for it. Believe me, I know. Believe me, I know. It has been a hard road. It continues to be a hard road. We can make this right. President Trump can make this right. He's a man of action. I believe he will. He believes in family. He is the parent in chief. So you're saying there's about, I believe there's about 40 parents in your dossier, 40 stories in this general realm, but presumably there's more parents out there. What can they do? Right. So if they just go to realfreedomtalk.com, they can start a conversation with us and tell us their story, and then they can be included in the dossier. And it's some form of recognition for these parents

and what they went through, I think, is absolutely necessary. This is a gash in our society that needs to heal. We need to heal this. But we also need to send a message to the tyrants in our schools, the petty bureaucrats, and the law enforcement that did their bidding, that this is not acceptable, and we need people to step up so that this never happens again. I also understand that somehow you're aware that the FBI was surveilling you. And that's maybe unexpected for a class three misdemeanor scenario.

Unacceptable. It's Dossi level. And I know this because this came out in deposition for my trial, but also because I've also seen them in my shop and a couple of them identified themselves. And this is the case for a number of parents. And here's the problem. No federal indictments or charges came across. However, people were arrested, charged, and jailed by state and local authorities. And here's the problem. The FBI, the DOJ participated in that because 14 Tucson police officers in an area where they have a shortage of officers were working

in tandem with the FBI to investigate a guy for misdemeanor three trespassing. So the argument could be made as the state attorneys general said that all of this was based on fraud. And I don't know how the legal things work. Talk to Harmeet Dhillon or someone. But if you base all of this on fraud, people get arrested and the federal government is participating in that, it needs to go away. It really does. It goes all the way up to the federal level. So it's difficult because when things are on the local level, how does the federal government step into that? But honestly, the federal

government was part of everything forming in the first place. So this is very problematic. We need to do something about it. One thing I remember when we had Cash's corner with now FBI Director Cash Patel, one of the things we discussed is that it's also an issue of focus, right? When there's this kind of a memo that's written and the FBI is told to watch out for domestic terrorist type parents that with the description that I mentioned earlier, they're also not doing other things. Yes, it's a matter of priorities. And it is astonishing to me that our governments would prioritize targeting parents over other things. Border crossings, for instance.

Fentanyl abuse, for instance. So it was surreal for me to walk into the DOJ to meet with Ed Martin, the Belly of the Beast, the very organization that's made life hell for my family. And it should be, the distinction should be made that when we're talking about the abuses, we're talking about the previous administration. The response we've gotten from this administration

has been so positive. Both Ed Martin and Vince Haley sat and they paid rapt attention to us. We talked about restitution. We talked about all these things. They're very, very supportive. I understand Ed's not able to make it to the presser today, but he has expressed his support. And we need to move this forward. We need to do this now because a lot of these parents are at the

end of their rope financially. They're having to see therapists and, you know, family division. People have had families turn their backs on them because of what the media has done, what the courts have done to make them seem like criminals. A final thought as we finish up, Sam? I just want to encourage parents to engage in your child's education. You are the number one input there and the most important part of it. We have parents on the dossier, Republican, Democrat, the self-proclaimed progressive. This should transcend a party rhetoric because this is an issue of humanity.

In every culture throughout time, even in the animal kingdom, protecting your children is instinctual. It is the most fundamental of duties of human beings, of rights, and that has to be protected. So this needs to be first priority to be taken care of. Can I just say, what's amazing is that there weren't more parents that found themselves in this position. And that saddens me, because that's really a statement, that there were so many parents who were willing to just lie down

and let the schools do whatever they wanted to kids, whatever it was. The stories that our dossier tell about what was done to children in the schools, there was a young girl in a school who voted the wrong way in the class fake election, and her teacher grabbed her by the throat. These stories, my point is, I imagine these stories are not the exceptions, that these stories are more like the rule, and that there are too many parents who aren't really willing,

they're not involved, they're not willing to go to the bat for their kids, they're just not aware and we need parents more involved and more aware. And I realized in researching these stories, Sam and I have fielded most of this and communicated with these parents, I realized that what we experienced, we're not alone, there are patterns, there are similarities. This happened across the country and and now people finally, they're not feeling as isolated. They're feeling like somebody's coming forward. I can't thank Sam enough. I can't thank all the major parenting groups for coming alongside.

They're going to be at the conference today, the members of Congress. This is really coming finally to a talking point, finally to a place where we're at a tipping point to resolve this and help these families who had the courage to stand up and take the hits so other people wouldn't have to. And we have to thank you for doing this for us. We really appreciate it. Well, Sam Sorbo, Kelly Walker,

such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, Jan. Thank you all for joining Sam Sorbo, Kelly Walker, and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.