After January 6, Americans were told that the FBI “cannot and does not investigate ideology.” An FBI Spokesman assured citizens, “We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence or criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security.”
But quietly, the FBI has classified a group of Americans as a “threat to national security.”
Not Catholics, that’s already been done.
The FBI’s newest focus, as revealed in a Newsweek investigation, encompasses a new category of extremists it claims is a substantial threat to the integrity of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The focus of this effort is to monitor and address Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters.
But the FBI faces a challenging dilemma in its efforts to combat “domestic terrorism” without explicitly targeting any political groups, despite most of its “anti-government” investigations focusing on Trump supporters. The agency claims that its goal is to prevent a repeat of the January 6, 2021, Capitol incident while upholding Americans’ Constitutional rights to free speech and protests.
The FBI is further concerned that concentrating on Trump and his MAGA supporters will provoke the “anti-government activists” it seeks to neutralize.
An unnamed FBI official ironically notes that “At a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it must tread very carefully.”
Just to clarify, the FBI must tread carefully while weaponizing itself because it has been accused of weaponizing itself.
The Biden administration has consistently portrayed Trump and MAGA as a grave danger to American democracy. They’ve emphasized the risk of domestic terrorism and violence in relation to the 2024 election. President Biden himself has singled out Trump and MAGA as a threat to the country’s core values. The administration’s homeland security advisor echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that “violence for political gains” jeopardizes public safety, national security, and the very essence of American democracy.
It’s a lesson Democrats should take to heart, considering the progressive-led summer of violence in 2020, resulting in injuries, death, and the destruction of billions of dollars worth of public and private property.
But MAGA remains a “terrorist threat.” According to a report from DHS and the FBI, various sociopolitical factors, including election fraud narratives, the Capitol breach, pandemic-related conditions, and violence-promoting conspiracy theories, are expected to motivate certain domestic terrorists to pursue violent actions. Note that these sociopolitical factors are all associated with MAGA, regardless of the veracity of the claims.
Shortly after January 6, the FBI co-authored a confidential report titled “Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach, Elevated Domestic Terrorism Threat of Violence Likely Amid Political Transitions and Beyond.” In this report, a significant alteration was made to the definition of AGAAVE (“anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism”). The shift was from “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.”
This subtle change marked a pivotal departure for the Bureau so that it could classify Trump and his supporters as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists. It raised questions about the FBI’s approach to investigating and preventing domestic terrorism, as the agency had previously claimed that political views were not part of its criteria.
Then, in October of 2022, the FBI quietly took it a step further and created a new subcategory, AGAAVE-Other. This classification is distinct from anarchist, militia, or Sovereign Citizen groups, focusing instead on individuals who are “motivated to engage in violence” against those connected with a particular political party or its factions.
The FBI continues to claim a neutral stance, but the numbers show differently. It attributes an increase of investigations in 2020 and 2021, citing incidents like the George Floyd protests, COVID, elections, and January 6.
However, data reveals that Trump supporters were the primary focus of these investigations. In fact, during this period, the count of “full investigations” resulting in arrests was 1,446, a number that eerily echoes the number of protestors arrested after January 6th. Delving deeper into individual cases, almost two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations are directed at Trump supporters and individuals suspected of violating the FBI’s “anti-riot” laws.
And most chilling of all, Christopher P. Costa, the former White House head of counterterrorism, contends that while the government’s primary goal is safeguarding U.S. citizens and adhering to the rule of law, the domestic terrorist threat from anti-government groups stems from a small fraction of “misguided individuals” among fellow Americans.
That means you, MAGA supporters. The FBI is single-handedly turning the United States of America into a tyranny where only one viewpoint is valid. And it’s not yours.