Judging Freedom - FBI Whistleblower

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

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Good afternoon, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 12, 2022. It's about 2.30 in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States. Just a few hours ago, the story broke about FBI whistleblowers. Now, I don't know if these are FBI agents or if they're civilian employees of the FBI, but people in the FBI have blown the whistle of the FBI to members of Congress about criminal investigations that the FBI has opened into parents who protested the decisions of school boards about the curriculum, the curricula that they were teaching. They were protesting, teaching about LGBTQ gender identity issues to children as young as five, and they were objecting

to teaching about Black Lives Matter in a way that made it sound as if the United States is still irreparably racist and is motivated entirely or exclusively or principally by its white supremacy and hatred of blacks. That's at least my understanding of what these people were protesting. All the protest is lawful and protected by the Constitution. It is either freedom of speech, protected by the First Amendment, or freedom of assembly speech protected by the First Amendment or freedom of assembly protected by the Second Amendment. We know what happened in Virginia. These cases are all in Virginia. Arguably, Governor Youngkin of Virginia is Governor Youngkin now because he defeated former Governor Terry McAuliffe, who basically said the children are ours, meaning the government's, while they're in school and the parents should have no say in what

they're taught. And Governor Youngkin, then Mr. Youngkin, supported the more sensible, more normal, more natural view that, of course, parents should have a say in what their children are taught. Now we have it on tape. So first we're going to show you Senator Mike Lee on the Senate Judiciary Committee asking Attorney General Merrick Garland, are you investigating these parents? You can hear for yourself his answer. And then you'll hear the reply to that answer, which is just yesterday. Statement by Attorney General Garland is a few months ago. You'll hear a reply to that by Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, speaking to one of my former colleagues on Fox News. Take a listen. How did you determine that intervention by the FBI and the DOJ was necessary,

that that was the right approach? So the right approach in the letter is to meet with local law enforcement. That's what we've asked for, is to meet, to assess the situation, to see what their needs are, to strategize, and to open lines of communication. But I'm hopeful that we will not be needed in this area, that our state and local partners will be able to handle these threats. When the Attorney General made that statement last October, we had our doubts then, and now based on more than actually multiple whistleblowers who've come forward with over two dozen instances where the threat tag designation was put on parents, put on moms and dads, and they were investigated. Now, what Congressman, well, first, what's what Attorney General Garland, former Judge Garland, said was that we're not engaged in investigations.

We're talking to local and state authorities. That may have been true at the moment. It's not true now. We know from the whistleblowers, and this is what Congressman Jordan was talking about, have identified criminal investigations of parents to the point where they have tagged them, not put something physical on their body, but tagged them in the record as potential terrorists. If true, if what these FBI whistleblowers have said is true, this is outrageous and unconstitutional. The Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as requiring, quote, articulable suspicion, closed quote, of criminal behavior before you can start the investigation. You can't commence an investigation of someone just because you don't like what they

did, FBI. You can't investigate, you can't commence a criminal investigation of someone because they are engaged in protected behavior, freedom of assembly, or protected speech, freedom of speech. Both of these are insulated as the basis for commencing a criminal investigation. So either Attorney General Garland didn't know what he's talking about or changed his mind, or I hate to say this, as a former federal appeals court judge, was the chief prosecutor in the Tim McVeigh Oklahoma City case, needs to go back and study the Constitution. You can't just sick the FBI on people because you don't like their political opinions. And that's apparently what happened here. This is outrageous. I should not be, and Congressman Jordan should not be the only people outraged by

this. All Americans should be outraged when parents are targeted by the FBI for protesting that their children are being taught garbage and perversity in public schools. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.