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U.S. Intel Gatekeeper Dragging Feet on Trump-Russia Files, Insiders Say
Above, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Tysons Corner, Va. (Intelligence.gov)
Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations.
More than three months after President Trump granted his attorney general unprecedented power to declassify intelligence files, key U.S. intelligence agencies are still withholding documents related to the Trump-Russia affair, say people with direct knowledge of White House discussions on the subject.
The source of the logjam: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which Trump is in the process of shaking up after the resignations last month of its director, Dan Coats, and principal deputy, Sue Gordon. “Establishment” officials in that agency are still dragging their feet, say the sources, who spoke on condition that they not be further identified.
Sources who have seen the documents generally described their contents to RealClearInvestigations. They said the material still under wraps includes:
• Evidence that President Obama’s CIA, FBI, and Justice Department illegally eavesdropped on the Trump campaign --- cases separate from the FBI’s disputed FISA court-approved surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
• An August 2016 briefing CIA Director John Brennan hand-delivered in a sealed envelope to Obama, containing information from what Brennan claimed was "a critical informant close to Putin." The informant is believed to have actually been a Russian source recycled from the largely debunked dossier compiled by ex-British agent Christopher Steele for the Hillary Clinton campaign .
• An email exchange from December 2016 between Brennan and FBI Director James Comey, in which Brennan is said to have argued for using the dossier in early drafts of the task force’s much-hyped January 2017 intelligence assessment. That spread the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the alleged Clinton campaign hacking to steal the election for Trump.
• Copies of all FBI, CIA and State Department records related to Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor whose statements regarding Papadopoulos allegedly triggered the original Russia-collusion probe.
• Transcripts of 53 closed-door interviews of FBI and Justice Department officials and other witnesses conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. The files were sent to the agency last November.
The transcripts “demonstrate who was lying and expose the bias that existed against Trump before and after his election,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) of the House Judiciary Committee. They also reportedly contain evidence of a Democratic National Committee attorney maintaining Russia-related contacts with the CIA during the 2016 campaign.
The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment. James Clapper, its head under Obama, has argued that it is concerned about protecting “sources and methods” from unauthorized disclosure.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with its sprawling headquarters in Tysons Corner, Va., became the gatekeeper of virtually all classified information in the federal government after its creation in 2005 in response to 9/11 intelligence failures. It has the authority to declassify and publicly release such records.
But Trump transferred that authority to Attorney General William Barr in late May to remove a bottleneck in the release of classified information sought by Republican lawmakers investigating the origins of the Russia “collusion” investigation launched by the FBI.
Before stepping down, Coats resisted the president's declassification order after getting pushback from the intelligence bureaucracy; sources say it is protective of its turf from Justice Department encroachment, and concerned about being implicated in the attorney general’s ongoing investigation of “political surveillance” that he says was aimed at the Trump campaign and presidential transition.
"There's been a huge impasse in getting key documents to Congress and declassified during the Russia investigation,” said a source close to the situation. “Several House members, especially Devin Nunes [of House Intelligence] and Mark Meadows [of House Oversight)] were upset that Coats refused to cooperate in releasing this explosive material to Congress.”
The source said, “It was clear Coats was not acting on the president’s behalf and had been co-opted by the intelligence bureaucracy."
Intelligence officials don’t appear to be in legal trouble – yet. Barr has requested but not demanded the documents, hoping for their cooperation, the sources say.
But in response to such resistance, Trump is orchestrating a broad shake-up of senior leadership in the intelligence community after the departures of Coats and Gordon, the latter a close ally of Brennan.
Earlier this month, Trump withdrew his nomination of Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, a newly seated member of the House Intelligence Committee, as Coats’s replacement after the nominee got a chilly reception from Senate Republicans who questioned his intelligence experience. Ratcliffe has been an outspoken critic of the FBI’s Russian collusion investigation.
Instead, Coats has been temporarily replaced by former Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Maguire, who moved over from his post as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, giving Trump another intelligence-related position to fill.
The president isn’t expected to make a decision on a permanent replacement for Coats until the Senate returns from recess on Sept. 9. The head of ODNI is a Cabinet-level position that has to be confirmed by the upper chamber.
“A new director might help break the logjam in declassifying documents for Barr’s investigation,” said Christopher C. Hull, a national security consultant and former senior congressional aide, adding it’s now “toweringly obvious that some portion of U.S. intelligence worked to undermine Trump."
Peter Hoekstra: former head of the House intelligence panel is now U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.
The president has as many as eight candidates under consideration. But his short list includes Peter Hoekstra, the current U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Fred Fleitz, a 20-year veteran of the CIA who also worked for Hoekstra on the House intelligence panel as staff director and, most recently, for Trump in the White House as an adviser on national security.
Hoekstra declined comment – "I’m going to pass on this, thanks for asking" – but sources say the president recently interviewed him for the top ODNI job. Hoekstra, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, appears to be the front-runner. “He’s great,” Trump said of the former GOP congressman.
Hoekstra has questioned the Obama administration’s decision not to brief candidate Trump about alleged Russian election interference during the 2016 campaign, suggesting “politics” overrode any national security concerns. He has also said he would like to see an investigation of "actions taken by the Obama administration,” including the "increase in surveillance and the unmasking of Americans,” including Trump campaign figures, in foreign intercepts during the election.
Sources say Fleitz met with the president Aug. 5, and has been interviewed for the position by White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. In fact, he has been under consideration for the powerful post since February.
The insider sources said Trump and Fleitz have discussed in more than one meeting foreign policy regarding Iran and North Korea, as well as concerns about determined “resistance" from deeply entrenched bureaucrats and Obama holdovers in the intelligence community — along with the need to “streamline” and “reform" ODNI.
Fleitz would not confirm he is in the running for the position, but also did not deny it.
“I can’t comment on those reports,” Fleitz told RealClearInvestigations.
“I will say it was a great honor to serve President Trump as a member of his NSC [National Security Council] staff,” he added. "I have told the president that if he needs me to return to the administration, I would be happy to do so.”
Another name mentioned as a candidate for the top intelligence post is Gen. Joseph Dunford, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Fleitz, who currently serves as president of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative Washington think tank, has long questioned the credibility of a January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference. Fleitz called the report “rigged” and a “politicized analysis.”
The sources, who are familiar with Trump’s thinking on ODNI, say he wants a director who is not part of the “entrenched intelligence bureaucracy.” They say he’s suspicious of the intelligence establishment and believes it spied on him during and after the 2016 election, and is now withholding documents from investigators that could prove foreign intelligence was weaponized against him.
Indeed, the dossier that was used as a basis to spy on his campaign proved to be false intelligence, possibly "Russian disinformation,” as the New York Times recently acknowledged.
The president’s skepticism about the intelligence community goes beyond the 2016 election. He frequently reminds West Wing staff of what he calls the “fake intelligence” regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that justified the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The stockpiles of WMD alleged in national intelligence reports were never found.
Sources say Hoekstra and Fleitz are less inclined to protect the CIA from investigation over the "political surveillance” aimed at Trump and his campaign in 2016, as Barr recently described it. Both have the support of key Republican lawmakers, including Nunes and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who are fed up with ODNI "stonewalling.”
“They know they'd be more cooperative with classified document production concerning the investigations,” said a second source familiar with the nomination process.
Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee was so furious with Coats for refusing to share information he sought for his investigation of the origins of the Russia “collusion” probe that he put a confirmation hold on an intelligence community nominee. He accused the intelligence czar of attempting to “hide documents” — including ones related to Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who operated as a conduit between Steele and the FBI -- and he complained about it in a letter to Trump earlier this year.
Trump also wants a reform-minded director unopposed to his goal of downsizing the ODNI, which has exploded in size with thousands of employees and a budget topping $60 billion. The relatively young agency now ranks among the largest bureaucracies in the 17-agency intelligence community.
Trump originally told aides he wanted to altogether eliminate the agency, which he believes is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, but he cannot because it was set up by legislation.
Fleitz, who has the support of National Security Adviser John Bolton, has proposed restructuring ODNI, including slashing its “bloated” budget and jettisoning “redundant units.”
In recent opinion articles he’s written, Fleitz has indicated he would not only ensure more transparency of records revealing suspected politicization of intelligence during the 2016 presidential race, but protect whistleblowers at the CIA and other agencies who were pressured to “cook" intelligence to support Obama administration foreign policies and objectives.
The CIA was run by Brennan from 2013 to 2017, and ODNI was run by Clapper from 2010 to 2017.
A House intelligence report found that Clapper leaked dossier information to CNN just before Trump was inaugurated. He is now a CNN contributor and constant Trump critic. It was an attitude, some Langley veterans say, that preceded the 2016 election. Former CIA field operations officer Gene Coyle said that Brennan broke with his predecessors, who stayed out of elections. Several weeks before the vote, he made it very clear he was pulling for Hillary Clinton in published reports and interviews. His deputy Mike Morell publicly endorsed Clinton in the New York Times, claiming even then that Trump was an “unwitting agent” of Moscow.
“The real question is why we are not hearing from more whistleblowers,” Fleitz wrote in National Review during Clapper’s and Brennan's tenures heading the intelligence community. "We must find better avenues for intelligence whistleblowers so they can raise their concerns without fear of retaliation."
The Return of the Loch Ness Monster
Bill O'Reilly, follow on Billoreilly.com
In 1933, most likely in a small, smoke-filled pub, someone came up with the idea of creating a giant lake bound creature to attract attention to a remote region in central Scotland.
It was the middle of the depression and to say people were suffering economically in the Loch Ness area, is the understatement of the 20th century. Things were monstrous - so why not create one? Maybe folks might go up there to check out the mystery, then spend money in the pub.
It worked.
All the world over folks heard about the Loch Ness monster (nicknamed Nessie) and more than a few believed the myth.
Tourists and money poured in, followed by actual scientists who eventually put out a statement: “The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a phenomenon without basis.”
In other words - a hoax.
Today in America, the monster is Donald Trump. And those who would like to destroy the President are trying to create a fearsome creature: a White Supremacist with colossal power who is wrecking havoc on the nation.
After failing to cripple Mr. Trump with charges of conspiring with Russia to subvert the election of 2016, the race card has been dealt again. But it’s not that Trump is a beneficiary of “white privilege” anymore. Nope. Now the President is a full-fledged “White Supremacist.”
Listen to Senator Elizabeth Warren: “It’s just one piece of evidence after another, when he has been so embraced by the white supremacists and has not distanced himself, then he’s there.”
Senator Kamala Harris: "[President Trump] is someone who empowers white supremacists, and who condones their behavior ...”
Well, in my opinion, the Trump-haters are creating a myth similar to Nessie. So let’s examine what’s happening in a fact-based way.
If you understand what white supremacy really is, you know the best example is The Third Reich. Under Hitler, the German people were told that they were the master race, based primarily on their “aryan” caucasian blood lines.
If you read my book “Killing the SS,” you will learn how that white supremacist philosophy was put into policy. The result was millions dead, tens of millions brutalized.
While researching my upcoming book “The United States of Trump,” we could not find one example of the President discussing skin color in a pejorative way or promoting caucasian dominance.
Of course, Mr. Trump’s statements against illegal immigration, Muslim terrorism, and the economic failure of some third world countries are being used to create a racial theory, but theories are not facts and are often wrong.
Likewise, when Mr. Trump criticizes a staunch opponent like Congressman Elijah Cummings, some allege that skin color motivates the controversy, but there is absolutely no evidence that is the case. Donald Trump castigates perceived enemies of every color and race. His speech is remarkably uninhabited, sometimes brutal.
Without direct evidence, branding the President a white supremacy adherent becomes a cheap piece of political propaganda. And I would say the same thing about any politician maligned that way if flimsy evidence were used in the smear. In the upcoming Trump book, I spend some time on the Charlottesville controversy and the factual evidence will demonstrate that white supremacy did not play a role in the President’s statements.
Of course, for Trump-haters, no amount of evidence will back them off of racial condemnation. They will use every possible slur to damage him.
But fair-minded Americans should closely scrutinize the racial demonization that is currently embraced by some democrats and members of the national media.
The propaganda distributors in Nazi Germany were experts in how to create myths surrounding racial accusations. They were specialists in demonization. As the despicable Nazi Joseph Goebbels once said: “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”
Many Americans do not approve of President Trump. That is their civic and constitutional right. But he is not a white supremacist and does not seek to “empower” those dangerous people.
Another myth that should be deposited at the bottom of Loch Ness.
California's "Big Brother" Sex Education
Melissa Barnhart, CP Reporter
California's sex ed guidelines are 'shocking' and 'medically risky' for kids, teacher says
California’s controversial new sex ed guidance contains medically risky advice that reads like it was written by a college fraternity, says a former public school teacher who’s been helping parents mobilize against the curriculum.
“It’s shocking,” Rebecca Friedrichs, the founder of For Kids & Country, said in an interview with The Christian Post when describing the condom relay races 10- and 11-year-old girls have been participating in at schools where, in front of boys, they’re taught how to put a condom on a model of an erect adult male penis.
Students as young as 11, she warned, are also being taught to engage in risky sexual acts, such as experimenting with oral and anal sex with their “partner.”
“It is medically risky on multiple levels. And when you read the curriculum … it’s written almost like a college fraternity wrote this curriculum in a very crass and a juvenile way,” she said about the guidance she described as “troubling” and not age appropriate.
“I always tell people that the scary thing is, I’ll give radio interviews and I can’t even say on the radio things that are being taught in our elementary and middle school classrooms in mixed company. There’s something very wrong there,” added Friedrichs, who taught in public schools for 28 years and was the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. CTA that paved the way for a precedent-setting ruling that freed public sector employees from having to pay annual union dues.
“No one believes it until they see it,” she said of the curriculum. “Now that we’ve been able to help parents to understand what’s actually in the curriculums and they’re viewing it for themselves, they see the urgent need to rescue the kids. Now there’s a groundswell of parents that’s growing fast and fighting back.”
Earlier this month, California’s Board of Education voted in favor of changes to its sex ed guidance for kindergarten through 12th grade students known as the Health Education Framework. It aligns with the California Healthy Youth Act, also known as Assembly Bill 329, the state’s comprehensive sex ed law that passed the state Assembly in 2015 and became law on Jan. 1, 2016.
AB 329 was passed by all Democrats and one Republican, Friedrichs told CP, “And the coalition of supporters was the California Teachers Association, the California School Boards Association, and the California State Parent Teachers Association.”
Parents across California have been organizing protests for months to voice their opposition to lessons on gender fluidity and what they see as the sexualization of their children.
One concern for many parents and groups, such as California Family Council, was the content of the newly approved books that the Board of Education wanted to make available for teachers.
For example, one of the proposed books, titled S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, features explicit descriptions of anal sex, bondage and other erotic activities.
The book, along with a few others, was removed from the list in the guidance.
“It’s important to know the board is not trying to ban books. We’re not saying that the books are bad,” said State Board of Education member Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon, the AP reported.
The new guidance for public and charter schools statewide is the first in the nation to require that students be taught lessons on transgender topics starting in pre-K and kindergarten. While parents can opt their children out of sex ed lessons on sexual health, they cannot take their children out of class when lessons are being taught about gender fluidity and same-sex marriage.
“The reason why people cannot opt out of the gender identity [lessons] is because the unions and their allies have labeled that anti-bullying,” Friedrichs added. “It’s this anti-bullying campaign so that LGBT children don’t get bullied because they claim there’s this big problem with bullying of those children. There’s a big problem of bullying everyone. Everyone gets bullied, that’s a problem. We teach kindness and Judeo-Christian values to combat bullying.
“What the unions do,” she said, “is they push their agenda by saying, ‘We have to stop all this bullying, so every single child in America needs to be exposed to this anti-bullying in the form of gender spectrum and gender identity. It’s caused a lot of confusion for parents here, because parents will say, ‘Oh, I don’t need to worry, I can opt out.’ Well, you can’t opt out of all of it.”
In March, hundreds of parents and concerned California residents attended a public hearing held by the Instructional Quality Commission, an advisory body to the state board, to voice their opposition to the Revision of the Health Education Framework. Since then, protests have continued outside the state Capitol and district school boards across the state.
The framework, The Washington Post reported, covers six subject areas: nutrition and physical activity; growth, development and sexual health; injury prevention and safety; alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; mental, emotional and social health; and personal and community health.
In kindergarten through third grade, children will learn about gender identity; they’ll be taught about masturbation in fourth through sixth grades; in seventh and eighth grade they’ll learn about consent and sexual abuse, and in ninth through 12th grade, they’ll learn more about “contraception and healthy sexual relationships, including advice for LGBTQ students,” The Washington Post added.
A draft of the framework says in part that kindergarten through third-grade students can begin to “challenge gender stereotypes” and that “some children in kindergarten and even younger have identified as transgender or understand they have a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth.” It also advises teachers to “Discuss gender with kindergarteners by exploring gender stereotypes and asking open-ended questions, such as what are preferred colors, toys, and activities for boys/girls, and then challenging stereotypes if presented.”
The LGBT activist group Equality California told The Sacramento Bee that the framework “provides all students with the education and tools to lead healthy lives.”
“We don’t believe any of this will prime students to do anything they wouldn’t normally do,” said Equality California’s communications manager, Josh Stickney. “It’s important to dispel myths and stigma around sex health for the LGBT community. That starts with awareness and sex education.”
Not all parents are alarmed when they read about the California Healthy Youth Act and comprehensive sexual education. They think, “Oh, what’s the big deal?” Friedrichs said. “Unless you know some of the jargon that they use, you might not even be alarmed if you read the law. You should be [alarmed,] there are some alarming things. But it might not alarm everybody.”
“What’s happened is the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association have taken over our schools, and they control a lot of school boards by getting their activists on our local school boards and using teachers to phone bank and do campaigning. Teachers have no idea they’re being used to push an agenda. The unions are pushing the agenda,” she asserted.
“They use the PTA as a front to pass all these kinds of horrific things to convince people that ‘oh, this must be perfectly fine, the PTA’s behind it,’ so people won’t question it.
“There are multiple other organizations that are involved. Another huge organization that is involved in this is the ACLU,” she said. “And what they’re doing in California is the ACLU sends out curriculum approvals, saying they’ve approved these six curriculums for use with the California Healthy Youth Act.
“They all work in partnership, and they all work in partnership with the state and national teachers’ union. And this is a very personal agenda for many people within the state and national teachers’ union. They are activists who’ve planted themselves in our schools to push this sexual, social and a political agenda. They work with constantly with the Human Rights Campaign, they work with Planned Parenthood, they work with GLSEN, and the NEA works with the Kinsey Institute,” she added.
Friedrichs first learned about the condom relay races being used as part of sex ed in California schools when a concerned mother contacted her about it. “In that case, a school board in Northern California had already allowed the curriculum before it became law. And when this mom found out about it, she started pushing back."
Some teachers also are alarmed by the sex ed training they have to go through, including learning how to use anatomically correct, fully erect adult male penis models for teaching lessons about sex to their young students.
The teachers unions, in collaboration with far-left activist groups, are to blame, according to Friedrichs. “And the reason I keep saying the teachers unions because they are the root of all of this. … They use teachers’ dues money to lobby for it, to write laws, and they work with Planned Parenthood, and the Gay-Lesbian, Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign and the Kinsey Institute. All of these groups are working with the teachers unions to push this into our schools. … I don’t want teachers to be blamed and they are being blamed.”
“I’ve had teachers tell me that they plan to take two months off work so they don’t have to teach this,” Friedrichs continued. “The problem with that is, they wrote into the law that if a teacher refuses to teach it, or is ‘unqualified to teach it,’ then the experts come in to teach it. So now Planned Parenthood or GLSEN is going to sexually indoctrinate and abuse your child in the classroom.
“So the teachers can escape, but the kids can’t unless their parents know to opt them out. And they can’t escape from the gender stuff. So the fact that they wrote that into the law shows that they know teachers would be against this stuff. Because why else would they have it so that if the teacher didn’t do it then Planned Parenthood or GLSEN would step in.”
Parents who are mobilizing against the sex ed guidance that they see as pitting their children against them and the values they’re being taught at home can sometimes blame the teachers, and wrongly so, she said.
“Techers are really confused, because parents start to attack the teachers, thinking the teachers agree with this stuff and they don’t,” Friedrichs stressed. “The unions have planted some activists in our schools who are pushing it, so it looks like all teachers agree when they don’t. And the teachers don’t know this coming from the union. So then the teachers end up just terrified. They don’t know what to do.”
As an educator, Friedrichs told CP that she long ago took up the fight to battle corruption in teachers unions. After her lawsuit against the California Teachers Association was heard by the Supreme Court, she said God laid it on her heart to write a book, and she did. It’s titled Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers' Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country and is a compilation of testimonies of teachers, parents and students, that exposes how unions and far-left activists groups “degraded the teaching profession and are damaging our children.”
Friedrichs reiterated that it is vital parents not blame teachers for the sex ed curriculum that’s being taught at their children’s schools, but instead “adopt a teacher” and give then a copy of her book “so they can learn what they’re funding with their union dues.” Teachers unions pocket $5 billion a year tax free, she said, and things like California’s sex ed guidance can be stopped, she believes, if teachers stop handing over their hard-earned dollars to the unions.
In California, another part of the sex ed curriculum states that teachers are supposed to teach students where clinics like Planned Parenthood are located and how to get there.
One bill proposed in the state assembly earlier this year would put the number to Planned Parenthood or another abortion clinic on student ID cards.
“And we’re supposed to tell them that at age 12, you have the right to obtain free birth control, including the morning after pill and abortion, without your parents knowledge or permission,” she warned.
One game Friedrichs said students as young as 11 are taught to play is called “Tell it to Tanisha.” As part of the game students talk about their sexual interests and discuss experimenting with bisexuality, and any concerns they might have about contracting AIDS.
“Mind you these are 11-year-olds, so it’s this casual attitude of sleeping around with anyone — homosexual, bisexual, out of marriage. And they claim that they are teaching the kids about marriage and adoption. And when you look at the curriculum, there might be one little short mention or a few short pages on that stuff. And it’s all full of all the other, pushing sexual ideas onto the kids,” she added.
Anyone who pushes back against this, she said, gets labeled as a hater or gets attacked by the ACLU or placed on the SPLC’s Hate Map, she warned. “That’s how they control everybody. They’ve terrified the whole country. Everyone’s afraid to push back because they’re going to be labeled a hater and the ACLU is going to come after them.”
Two groups that have been fighting back against teaching gender fluidity in schools are Mass Resistance in Massachusetts and the law firm Pacific Justice Institute, both of which are listed on the SPLC’s Hate Map.
PJI was listed on the Hate Map for defending families whose kindergarten children were traumatized after their teacher read a book about changing genders called I Am Jazz. The teacher didn’t get parental permission before reading the book because she was not required to do so under AB 329.
The parents responded by speaking up at a school board meeting. And the teacher, Friedrichs said, was rewarded with a Teacher of the Year award by the teachers’ union.
When a group of parents in Southern California started pushing back two-and-a-half years ago, she said, parents and grandparents went to the school board, but members didn’t take action because they were threatened by the ACLU and the SPLC.
“I have had multiple school board members tell me anonymously that they have been personally threatened by the ACLU. So they’re scared. So when parents come in and complain, and they can’t understand why the school board won’t listen to them. And then the parents who push back are called haters and all this stuff, and they just want to protect their kids,” she added.
Anyone who pushes back against this, she said, gets labeled as a hater or gets attacked by the ACLU or placed on the SPLC’s Hate Map, she warned. “That’s how they control everybody. They’ve terrified the whole country. Everyone’s afraid to push back because they’re going to be labeled a hater and the ACLU is going to come after them.”
Two groups that have been fighting back against teaching gender fluidity in schools are Mass Resistance in Massachusetts and the law firm Pacific Justice Institute, both of which are listed on the SPLC’s Hate Map.
PJI was listed on the Hate Map for defending families whose kindergarten children were traumatized after their teacher read a book about changing genders called I Am Jazz. The teacher didn’t get parental permission before reading the book because she was not required to do so under AB 329.
The parents responded by speaking up at a school board meeting. And the teacher, Friedrichs said, was rewarded with a Teacher of the Year award by the teachers’ union.
When a group of parents in Southern California started pushing back two-and-a-half years ago, she said, parents and grandparents went to the school board, but members didn’t take action because they were threatened by the ACLU and the SPLC.
“I have had multiple school board members tell me anonymously that they have been personally threatened by the ACLU. So they’re scared. So when parents come in and complain, and they can’t understand why the school board won’t listen to them. And then the parents who push back are called haters and all this stuff, and they just want to protect their kids,” she added.
