Review of domestic terrorism after Kirk's murder shows Biden politicized issue, intel, fudged data

A useful picture of the domestic terrorism threat in America in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk has not yet come into focus, as the actual threat-scape has been muddled by the politicization of intelligence and by an overbroad use of the phrase "domestic terrorism."

A review of the Biden administration's application of the phrase shows that the phrase was used as a justification for targeting January 6 rioters, parents concerned about what their children were being taught in schools, and a wildly uneven treatment of those groups when compared to the widespread violence and destruction caused by Antifa and other progressive groups. 

The issue came to light as authorities announced last week that they had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson in connection to the killing of Kirk, a popular conservative influencer and ally of President Donald Trump. Robinson allegedly gunned down Kirk last Wednesday at Utah Valley University. Kirk's murder comes after two attempted assassinations of Trump and years of the Biden administration pointing to the January 6 riots and claiming "rightwing" extremism or "domestic terrorism" as the main domestic threat facing the U.S. 

Nonetheless, it took the FBI years to acknowledge that the mass shooting at a Republican congressional group practicing baseball —  by self-professed "Bernie Bro" James T. Hodgkinson — was an act of domestic terror.

Kirk's murder and reactions spark new insight 

The ammunition belonging to Robinson was allegedly inscribed with such antifascist and anti-Nazi phrases as “Hey fascist! Catch!” and apparent video game references, as well as inscriptions suggesting the suspect was steeped in so-called “antifascist” politics and online transexually-oriented meme culture.

Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told The Wall Street Journal in a story published Saturday that “it’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Monday that “his [the suspect's] family have collectively told investigators that he subscribed to left-wing ideology and even more so in these last couple of years.”

Just the News published last weekend that Robinson was living with a male romantic partner who is allegedly in the process of “transitioning” to being a female and who is currently “cooperating” with investigators, according to sources who declined to be named. Other media have reported the same.

Recent polling indicates that a significant minority of progressive-leaning and young voters may be open to political violence.

A poll released by YouGov in the wake of Kirk’s assassination showed majorities of all Americans believe that political violence is a very big problem, but with differing answers depending on age and party affiliation. Democrats and those under 30 years of age were less likely to admit it is a large problem, with 67% of Republicans and 69% of those older than 65 saying it is a very big problem, while 58% of Democrats and 50% of those under 30 said so.

Majorities of all demographic groups also responded that political violence is never justified, but Democrats and other left-leaning Americans were significantly less likely to agree. According to the poll, only 3% of very conservative respondents agreed, 6% of conservatives did so. By contrast, 17% of liberals disagreed, and 25% of very liberal respondents disagreed. Similarly, while 3% of those 65 years or older said violence is never justified, only 19% of those under 30 said so.

The Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University released a poll in April which found that “38% of respondents stated it would be at least somewhat justified to murder” Trump, with “56%” of those who “self-identified as left of center […] at least somewhat justifying murder” for the current president.

Biden Admin used January 6 as centerpiece of domestic terrorism policy

The Biden administration’s domestic terrorism strategy repeatedly cited January 6 as a key example of "domestic terrorism." Then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced only a few days after Biden was inaugurated as president in January 2021 that Biden had ordered a review of the allegedly rising domestic terrorism threat — citing January 6 as her sole example.

“The January 6 assault on the Capitol and the tragic deaths and destruction that occurred underscored what we have long known: The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national threat,” Psaki told news outlets. “The Biden administration will confront this threat with the necessary resources and resolve.”

The Biden White House soon released its “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” in June 2021. The White House “fact sheet” at the time said that “on his first full day in office, President Biden directed his national security team to lead a 100-day comprehensive review of U.S. Government efforts to address domestic terrorism, which has evolved into the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today.”

“Domestic terrorist attacks in the United States have also been committed frequently by those opposing our government institutions,” the strategy said, adding that “just months ago, on January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an unprecedented attack against a core institution of our democracy: the U.S. Congress.”

“Victims of the 1921 Tulsa massacre bore the terrible brutality of domestic terrorists of their era. Victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suffered the awful inhumanity of domestic terrorists of their time. Victims in Charleston, El Paso, Pittsburgh, Poway, and even the U.S. Capitol now join this tragic history,” the Biden strategy document argued.

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland declared in January 2022 that “there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice” than going after those involved with January 6, calling the DOJ’s inquiry “one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history.”

Matt Olsen, the assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s National Security Division, announced the creation of a new “domestic terrorism unit” in January 2022 during a hearing titled, “The Domestic Terrorism Threat One Year After January 6.”

Jan. 6 vs. Antifa: Uneven treatment by Biden's DOJ

Large and often-violent protests swept across the U.S. in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd, accompanied by rioting, looting, arson, and violence, declared "mostly peaceful" by legacy media. Republicans have repeatedly argued the Justice Department prosecuted the Capitol riot prosecutions more intensely than their investigations into the 2020 riots.

The DOJ's Olsen insisted during his testimony that January 6 “stands apart” and “represents now the single largest domestic terrorism investigation in the nation’s history.” That statement is historically debatable: The Palmer Raids of 1920, led by a young J. Edgar Hoover, saw between "3,000 and 10,000 people in 35 cities detained on suspicion of sympathizing with Communists or anarchists," according to the National Constitution Center. Many were deported to Russia or Eastern Europe.

Jill Sanborn, the executive assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division in 2020, referred to “2020 and the violence that we all saw around the peaceful protests” during January 2022 testimony and said the bureau had opened “slightly more than 800 cases” related to domestic terrorism tied to the dozens of violent nationwide 2020 riots — compared to the 1,583 individuals arrested in connection to the Capitol riot, according to the DOJ.

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed in a February 2022 speech that the FBI was working just as hard to punish those involved in the 2020 George Floyd riots as it was to prosecute those tied to the Capitol riot of January 2021.

Wray said, “We have one standard, which is, I don’t care whether you’re upset about an election, upset about our criminal justice system, whatever it is you’re upset about, there is a right way and a wrong way to express what you’re upset about in this country, and violence, violence against law enforcement, destruction of property, is not it.”

This assessment of domestic terrorism did briefly mention that “a significant portion” of the 2021 investigations “were directly related to the unlawful activities during the January 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol.” In fact, the DHS and FBI document shows them underplaying a "significant portion" when it is now known that the January 6-related cases were essentially the entirety of the purported jump in domestic terrorism.

The 2022 report said that prior to the January 6 arrests, the FBI arrested approximately 180 domestic terrorism subjects in 2020, while it arrested roughly 800 such subjects in 2021.

Treating parents attending school board meetings as domestic terrorists

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a controversial memo in 2021 that allowed the Biden-era Justice Department and FBI to investigate alleged threats posed by outspoken parents at school board meetings. Garland’s October 2021 memo had alleged there had been a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against” those who “participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools.” It said the Biden DOJ would “discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”

The Biden DOJ memo was prompted in part by a National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter from late September 2021 which had argued to then-President Biden that “the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and called upon the DOJ to review whether the Patriot Act could be deployed.

Garland admitted to Congress in October 2021 that the NSBA’s letter was a “relevant factor” in putting together his memo., though he also said that “I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children.”

The Biden DOJ’s press release on the memo announced a new DOJ “task force” along with representatives from DOJ’s National Security Division, Criminal Division, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and the FBI. The bureau created an “EDUOFFICIALS” threat tag as it investigated protesting parents.

Emails from within the NSBA itself show top members of the NSBA had been consulting with the Biden White House about the letter. After a widespread national outcry and amid internal pushback within the organization, the NSBA disavowed its own letter in late October 2021, saying that “we regret and apologize for the letter” and that “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”

Garland testified to Congress later that month that the NSBA’s follow-up apology letter did not sway him: “The language in the letter which they disavow is language which was never included in my memo and never would’ve been. I did not adopt every concern that they had in their letter. I adopted only the concern about violence and threats of violence, and that hasn’t changed.”

Long-running FBI cover-up of anti-GOP baseball shooter and his motives

The FBI for years also refused to admit that James Hodgkinson's attempted murder of Republican congressmen was an act of domestic terror. The GOP-led House Intelligence Committee concluded earlier this year that the FBI “misled the public” for years in claiming a gunman's attempt to kill Republican congressmen at a June 2017 baseball practice was "suicide by cop”, when it was in fact domestic terrorism.

The House committee report concluded, “the FBI’s bottom line – ‘the FBI does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism’ – was based upon falsehoods, half-truths, and manipulations of the known facts.”

The GOP-led Intelligence panel said in the report that now-FBI Director Kash Patel's cooperation is "a welcome change from previous FBI leadership, who thwarted Congressional oversight and public accountability at every turn. However, after reviewing the case file, the Committee could not be more disappointed by the FBI’s incomplete investigation and substandard analysis in 2017.”

Hodgkinson, a left-wing activist from Illinois who supported socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shot four other people in the June 2017 attack, including two Captol Police officers and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. Scalise spent weeks in critical, then serious condition as a result of his wounds, according to PBS. Hodgkinson’s gunfire struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death and required multiple surgeries before returning to Congress. The shooter, after a ten-minute shootout, was killed by police, and an investigation showed he had written down the names of GOP congressmen.

Prior to the shooting, he reportedly asked bystanders whether the players on the field were Republicans or Democrats. After confirming his GOP targets were there, he sprayed bullets at the GOP members practicing for a baseball game. 

Alexandria’s top prosecutor, Bryan Porter, released a report in October 2017 concluding the shooting was "clear-cut" terrorism — a conclusion the FBI did not manage to reach for years.

By contrast, almost immediately after the shooting, the FBI under then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe denied any domestic terrorism in play. McCabe concluded that the attack by Hodgkinson was “suicide by cop” and that “the FBI does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism” — a position the bureau did not reverse until 2021, well into Wray’s tenure, and a position the FBI has never fully explained.

Domestic terrorism numbers inflated by use of January 6 to prove "rightwing threat"

The Biden Administration justified its contention that domestic terrorism was on the rise by quietly relying in large part on all the cases tied to the Capitol riot. Additionally, Biden's Pentagon ordered an investigation into extremism in the ranks which was based on the Capitol riot and which came up short of uncovering any significant problem.

Then-candidate Joe Biden himself denied that Antifa was anything more than an “idea” and claimed that then-FBI Director Christopher Wray had assessed as much. That claim was shown to be contradicted by the facts.

The artificial inflation of the domestic terrorism threat was revealed in declassified intelligence records from early 2022 made public by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in April of this year.

The declassified “Special Analysis” report from February 2022 revealed that “61 percent” of the alleged “2,950 domestic terrorism-related cases” being investigated by the FBI at the time were related to the Capitol riot. The analysis was put together by the “Joint Analytic Cell on Domestic Violent Extremism” run by the FBI, DHS, and the National Counterterrorism Center.

The “61 percent” figure added up to roughly 1,800 new alleged domestic terrorism cases — which means that, based on the Biden administration’s own figures, there would have actually been roughly 300 fewer domestic terrorism cases in 2021 than in 2020 if not for nearly 2,000 Capitol riot cases being dubbed domestic terrorism.

The revelation was also found in a subsection on “Fatal Domestic Violent Extremist Attacks and FBI Investigations” despite the fact that, contrary to the repeated claims of many Democrats, the Capitol rioters did not kill anyone.

The declassified analysis also revealed that, with regard to the number of alleged domestic terrorism-related arrests in the fiscal year of 2021, “78 percent of arrests related to 6 January Capitol Siege.” The graphic included in the analysis showed that, excluding the Capitol riot, the number of domestic terrorism arrests for 2021 would have actually been smaller than the number of domestic terrorism arrests in 2020.

The Biden administration had long been accused by conservatives and civil libertarians of dodging reality for four years, and he and his party made as much political capital as possible out of the riot, calling it “insurrection" and a horrific event of domestic terrorism. 

FBI attempted to link traditional Catholics to rightwing violence

The Richmond FBI field office’s since-retracted memo targeting Catholics was largely based on claims made by leftwing media publications and organizations, such as the now-discredited Southern Poverty Law Center. The FBI memo from 2023 linked “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” (RMVEs) with a “radical-traditionalist Catholic” (RTC) ideology. 

The rebuked and retracted FBI intelligence product contended in January 2023 that links between RMVEs and RTCs “almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwires and source development.”

After an outcry, the FBI’s national press office admitted in February 2023 that “this particular field office product…does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI” and claimed that “upon learning of the document, FBI Headquarters quickly began taking action to remove the document from FBI systems and conduct a review of the basis for the document.”

The Richmond field office also relied upon an Atlantic article on “How Extremist Gun Culture is Trying to Co-Opt the Rosary.” The local field office had also cited articles by Salon, including “Traditional Catholics and White Nationalist ‘Groypers’ Forge a New Far-Right Youth Movement” and “White Nationalists Get Religion.”

Biden administration never disclosed its creative number-crunching

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a February 2023 report on “Domestic Terrorism” but was unable to provide specific breakdowns on which domestic terrorism cases were tied to January 6 and which were not — because the Biden administration would ignore that issue for years, and repeatedly refused to provide information to lawmakers.

“Fiscal year 2021 also coincided with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the GAO report said. “EOUSA’s [the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys] data does not explicitly state which cases in the dataset are tied to the January 6th attacks.”

The FBI and DHS released an October 2022 report which revealed the FBI was conducting approximately 1,400 pending domestic terrorism investigations as of the end of fiscal 2020 and was conducting roughly 2,700 domestic terrorism investigations by the end of fiscal 2021 — an increase of 1,300 domestic terrorism cases.

The DOJ's Olsen admitted to Congress in July 2022 that much of the alleged rise in domestic terrorism figures was due to prosecutions of those involved in the events of January 6 — but then he claimed to not have specific information about it.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., asked Olsen if the jump in domestic terrorism investigations had led to a jump in indictments, excluding Capitol riot-related prosecutions. Olsen replied, “I don’t have a specific number on that, Congressman, because that number, that jump, doubling, that number does include the January 6 cases."

Biden's Pentagon orders a “stand down” over January 6 for reeducation, training

Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a U.S. military-wide “Stand-Down to Address Extremism in the Ranks” in February 2021. Austin said the goal was to “eliminate the corrosive effects that extremist ideology and conduct have on the workforce.” He said all military leaders should hold a one-day stand-down with their subordinates, and that the leaders should host discussions on "the importance of our oath of office; a description of impermissible behaviors; and procedures for reporting suspected, or actual, extremist behaviors."

The same day, then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby linked the stand-down directive to January 6.

“I think the events of January 6th certainly speak to … an argument that there is a blending of extremist national … the violent nationalist views and white supremacy views that has blended into the political environment. I think anybody who watched the events that day, that's a fairly obvious thing,” Kirby said. “It was a wake-up call. January 6th really, I think, not to shock the nation, but it certainly had an electric effect here at the Department of Defense in terms of the notion that anybody active-duty, let alone in the veteran community, but in active-duty could be involved in this.”

The Pentagon released its “Report on Countering Extremist Activity Within the Department of Defense” in December 2021, finding that “the available data generally shows that cases of prohibited extremist activity among Service members was rare.” 

Previously, in 2009, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire in an armed rampage at Fort Hood that killed 13 people and wounded 28. The Pentagon did not react by ordering a stand-down after the attack.

The Pentagon’s extremism report concluded that the “Department of Defense has determined the number of substantiated matters of members of the military who are subject to official action due to engagement in prohibited extremist activity are fewer than 100 over the past year.”

The conservative Heritage Foundation assessed in 2023 that "the DOD spent 5,359,000 hours on extremism prevention and over $500,000 on the stand-down, not including the cost of compiling the report.” The think tank added that the Biden Pentagon’s “budget request contained $34.2 million for ‘countering extremist activities.'"

A report by the Rand Corporation in 2023 found that “support among military veterans for extremist groups and extremist ideals appears similar to or less than levels seen among the U.S. public in general.” The Institute for Defense Analyses in 2023 also “found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole.”

As the investigation into the Kirk assassination moves forward, the FBI and DOJ may have a chance to revisit the manipulated or incomplete results, and rebuild some of the trust it lost with Americans.