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Dad pardoned over arrest at school board meeting on daughter’s
sexual assault rips ‘politicized’ DOJ: ‘Bone-chilling’
By Melissa Koenig, NYPost
Published Sep. 12, 2023, 7:56 a.m. ET
The Virginia father who was arrested at a school board meeting when he spoke out about his teen daughter being sexually assaulted by a transgender student slammed the Department of Justice on Monday as being “politicized and weaponized” for its handling of his case.
Scott Smith, who was recently pardoned by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, said in a new interview that he did not believe his case was treated fairly by federal prosecutors.
“I really wanted to win this straight up in court on my own merit, but unfortunately, you know as things have played out — our justice system across this land is unfortunately politicized and weaponized to the [hilt], and that should scare every American,” Smith told Fox News Monday night.
Smith also used the interview with Fox News anchor John Roberts to clarify what happened leading up to his arrest in June 2021.
Fox News
Smith also addressed a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that claimed the press used his altercation as proof of some type of greater right-wing campaign, or “an attempt to fit Mr. Smith into the Democratic Party’s portrayal of conservative critics of government as motivated by hatred.”
“It’s all true,” Smith said when presented with the article. “It’s what they did.
“They used me to silence moms and dads and grandmothers and grandpas and everybody else that we’re starting this movement to protect our children to stand up for our rights, to protect our children and say what we think is right for them.
“And there’s clear evidence that it somewhat worked,” he said, calling the Justice Department memo to school boards “bone-chilling.”
Smith was arrested at a Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22, 2021, when he spoke out about his teenage daughter being sexually assaulted in a school bathroom by a transgender student. He reportedly unleashed a storm of profanities and was convicted of disorderly conduct.
But he told “America Reports” he was not actually verbally sparring with the unsupportive school board members, as was originally believed, but rather a “radical parent” who called him a liar and threatened to “ruin” him on social media.
“I never spoke to the school board. That whole story is really kind of askew,” Smith said.
Smith was arrested at a Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22, 2021, after speaking up for his daughter.
REUTERS
“I was sitting in my little area, and a radical protester came and I heard this shouting behind me, and I turned around, and it was my wife and her — I didn’t even know my wife was there. She came in behind me,” he recounted.
“So I stepped in, tried to explain to this lady what was going on,” he said, saying he told the woman about his daughter’s assault by a transgender student.
“She looked at me dead in the face and said, ‘That’s not true, that’s not what happened. You are lying.’”
The police tried to de-escalate the situation, Smith said, but when they walked away, he again turned to engage the woman verbally.
That was when, he said, she threatened to “ruin” him on social media.
“I called her an expletive — the next thing I know, there are hands all over me, grabbing me from behind,” Smith recounted.
He said he was never “really fighting to clear my name from a disorderly conduct charge, I mean, I’m a country boy, I’m just disorderly sometimes.
“You know, what this was all about was my free speech, you know, that should not have happened that day,” he told anchor John Roberts.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Fox News Sunday he pardoned Smith.
@GovernorVA / Twitter
Smith was pardoned by Youngkin on Sunday when the Republican governor told “Fox News Sunday,” “I spoke with Mr. Smith on Friday, and I had the privilege of telling Mr. Smith that I will pardon him, and we did that on Friday.
“We righted a wrong. He should’ve never been prosecuted here. This was a dad standing up for his daughter.”
And God bless him!
But Loudon County Democratic Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, who was ultimately removed from the case, slammed the pardon as a “political stunt” and an “unprecedented, inappropriate intervention into an active legal case.”
She accused Youngkin of making himself “judge and jury” over herself and politically opposite county officials who were involved in the case.
When asked about those comments on Monday, Smith said Biberaj is “one of the most evil people I’ve ever met.”
“Unfortunately, I had to deal with her face-to-face with the prosecution of the sexual predator of my daughter,” he said. “We need to vote her out.”
The teenage suspect who sexually assaulted Smith’s daughter was found guilty of two counts of forcible sodomy.
The suspect was sentenced to a residential treatment facility and placed on the sex offender registry.
Good grief!
'Empty shelves with absolutely no books': Students, parents
question school board's library weeding process
Books published in 2008 or earlier removed from school library amid confusion
around new equity-based process
Nicole Brockbank, Angelina King · CBC News · Posted: Sep 13, 2023 2:00 AM PDT |
Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
Those are all examples of books Reina Takata says she can no longer find in her public high school library in Mississauga, Ont., which she visits on her lunch hour most days.
In May, Takata says the shelves at Erindale Secondary School were full of books, but she noticed that they had gradually started to disappear. When she returned to school this fall, things were more stark.
"This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books," said Takata, who started Grade 10 last week.
She estimates more than 50 per cent of her school's library books are gone.
In the spring, Takata says students were told by staff that "if the shelves look emptier right now it's because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008."
Takata is one of several Peel District School Board (PDSB) students, parents and community members CBC Toronto spoke to who are concerned about a seemingly inconsistent approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education.
They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier.
So, a thousand years of literature should be thrown out because the writers were not 'woke'? What madness!
Parents and students are looking for answers as to why this happened, and what the board plans to do moving forward.
There is much more on this story including how the books were selected to be removed.
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