DNI Tulsi Gabbard says Biden-era domestic terrorism policy 'must end,' calls it an abuse of power

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the Biden-era mentality of treating conservatives and citizens with dissenting views like domestic terrorists was an “abuse of power,” signaling that a 2021 memo that empowered the FBI to probe Americans for “concerning non-criminal behavior” is no longer operative.

Gabbard told Just the News in a statement Monday that she has ended the domestic terrorism approach of the Biden administration that was used to justify the targeting of conservative Catholics, gun enthusiasts and parents who protested school board policies.

In fact, officials said, domestic terrorism was recently removed as a top threat from the intelligence community’s national threat assessment as a first step in that transition.

Gabbard’s statement came after Just the News reported last week that a June 2021 domestic terrorism policy memo empowered federal agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security Department to open probes on Americans solely if an agent believed they had been involved in “concerning non-criminal behavior.”

You can read that memo here.

Biden lowered the bar for probing U.S. citizens to mere suspicion

The policy, which was shielded from Americans’ view because the document was mostly classified during the Biden years, substantially lowered the decades-long standard that agents opening a probe must have a predicate based on a reasonable factual basis that a crime has been committed.

The FBI and DHS were allowed by Biden to open a probe based on a mere concern and without the behavior having to be criminal in nature.

After Gabbard declassified the memo this spring, legal experts and members of Congress raised serious concerns about the change, warning it threatened Americans' rights and civil liberties. Gabbard signaled in her statement to Just the News that she shared those concerns.

“Disguised as an attempt to curb ‘domestic terrorism,’ Biden’s plan actually functioned as a partisan playbook on how the Biden Administration would weaponize government and intelligence against everyday Americans whose ‘offense’ was supporting President Trump, or daring to disagree with or oppose their policies,” the Trump administration’s top intelligence official said.

“To ensure transparency and accountability, I declassified and released the document, so Americans could see the truth about the Biden Administration's weaponization and politicization of our government against Americans. This abuse of power that violates our God-given freedoms and civil liberties must end,” Gabbard added.

Officials confirmed the Trump administration has abandoned the tactics enumerated in the 2021 memo crafted by the Biden National Security Council,

"The last administration appeared more focused on investigating Americans for their opinions than addressing actual criminal activity," the FBI said in a statement from a spokesman. "Under new leadership, the Bureau is actively reviewing and revising its guidance to ensure our efforts are focused where they belong: on making America safe."

The directives provided to the Justice Department and FBI under President Joe Biden by the National Security Council said the agencies should “drive…executive and legislative action” to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, rein in “ghost guns,” monitor active-duty service members for possible terrorism recruitment and "mitigate xenophobia and bias."

The Biden policy also included a plan to counter "xenophobic disinformation" as a basis for investigation by creating the “Disinformation Governance Board” program under DHS that was discontinued in 2022, after being widely criticized as an ersatz "Ministry of Truth" established in the name of national security. Nina Jankowicz, selected to head the board, was widely mocked before the board was disbanded.

Sen. Johnson reminds voters that "elections have consequences"

For decades, FBI agents have been required to meet stringent requirements for opening criminal and national security investigations, known as a "predicate." Before Biden's term, the predicate for a full investigation required "an articulable factual basis" that "reasonably indicates" a crime or national security threat has or is about to occur, according to the Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations.

Lawmakers expressed disbelief that such a change impacting civil liberties was made by Gabbard with so little notice, praising President Donald Trump and Gabbard for declassifying and releasing the memo.

"It's not surprising. But you're right. It is shocking," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the powerful Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told Just the News. Paraphrasing former President Barack Obama, Johnson said, "And again, elections have consequences, and in this case, it's a very good consequence that now this is coming to light.

"I appreciate Tulsi Gabbard looking up exactly what happened and releasing this information. It's important the American public understands what government does to it, how it tramples on our constitutional rights," he added.