Documents the FBI recently released show that a lawyer for the agency expressed her reservations about a draft version of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4, 2021 memo that initiated a controversial federal effort to investigate alleged harassment at school board meetings around the country.
The documents, which the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, showed FBI attorney Miriam Coakley expressed her hope that Garland and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would reconsider their actions.
“Not sure if you’ve seen this/weighed in—it was just raised to my attention,” Coakley wrote in an Oct. 4, 2021 email to Corey Frazier Ellis. Ellis was serving at the time as chief of staff for FBI Director Christopher Wray before Garland appointed him in December of that year to serve as the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina….