Senator Ted Cruz joined other Republicans in castigating Attorney General Merrick Garland over his directive to Justice Department to address violence and threats against school board officials. During a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, the Texas Republican at one point said parents making Nazi salutes at school board meetings were only trying to highlight the “oppressive” nature of policies.

“My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because they thought the policies were oppressive,” Cruz said. He then went on to ask Garland if doing a Nazi salute at an elected official was “protected by the First Amendment?”

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“Yes, it is,” Garland replied. Cruz then claimed that the Attorney General had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate parents as domestic terrorists.

Referring to a letter written by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to President Joe Biden, Cruz asserted that many of the examples of threats cited were “non-violent.”

Garland said he wasn’t responsible for the contents of NSBA letter, which Cruz referenced to attack him.

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The NSBA has apologised for a reference to domestic terrorism in its letter seeking the president’s help against “threats and acts of violence” against school boards.

Garland said his October 4 memo to the Justice Department “says nothing about domestic terrorism” and that he was also reacting to “public reports of violence and threats of violence.”

In a tweet, Cruz said his defense of Nazi salutes had been purposefully misinterpreted by some journalists.

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“Lefty journos are either (1) dishonest or (2) not very bright (or both),” the senator wrote in response to one journalist’s tweet. “The parent was doing the Nazi salute because he was calling the authoritarian school board Nazis—evil, bad & abusive. And yes, calling someone a Nazi is very much protected by the First Amendment.”