Remember when Attorney General Merrick Garland repeated the FBI’s dubious claim that domestic violent extremists are a dangerous threat to national security? Well, it appears these remarks might be more than exaggerated according to a whistleblower’s account of the situation.
Back in June 2021, Garland gave a public address discussing the threat of domestic terrorism in the United States. He parroted claims from the Bureau suggesting that race-based violence could pose a threat to Americans. In essence, they told the public that white supremacist terrorism could become more prevalent. He said:
“Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies undertook that assessment in the first several weeks of this Administration. In March, they concluded that domestic violent extremists “pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” Our experience on the ground confirms this. The number of open FBI domestic terrorism investigations this year has increased significantly.
According to an unclassified summary of the March intelligence assessment, the two most lethal elements of the domestic violence extremist threat are “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, and militia violent extremists.” In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.”
Indeed, other reports have shown that these organizations, along with radical Islamic terrorist groups, were taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to recruit more members. But the notion that they would constitute a threat to national security seemed suspect at best.
Now, whistleblowers are suggesting that the Bureau is cooking the books to make it appear as if domestic terrorist groups are more of a threat than they truly are. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) cautioned that the Justice Department under President Joe Biden has become politicized and is being used to advance a left-leaning agenda. According to a letter that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent to FBI Director Chris Wray on Wednesday, this is precisely what is happening.
“From recent protected disclosures, we have learned that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification,” the lawmaker wrote. “Given the narrative pushed by the Biden administration that domestic violent extremism is the ‘greatest threat’ facing our country, revelation that the FBI may be artificially padding domestic terrorism data is scandalous.”
Jordan noted that Wray claimed that investigations into domestic terrorism increased, while testifying before Congress. The director said the Bureau had “doubled the amount of domestic terrorism investigations.”
The White House announced a national strategy in 2021 for counteracting the supposed threat of domestic terrorism. Officials told Fox News that the investigations were focused on white supremacist and “militia violent extremists” because they represented the “most persistent and lethal threats.”
Rep. Jordan said the whistleblower’s account shows that the Biden administration is “misleading” the public on this matter. He wrote:
We have received accusations that FBI agents are bolstering the number of cases of [domestic violent extremists] to satisfy their superiors. For example, one whistleblower explained that because agents are not finding enough DVE cases, they are encouraged and incentivized to reclassify cases as DVE cases even though there is minimal, circumstantial evidence to support the reclassification.
But this isn’t all. Jordan also said one of the whistleblowers, “who led at least one high profile domestic terrorism investigation,” said that higher-ups in the Bureau “pressured agents to move cases into the DVE category to hit self-created performance metrics.”
In other words, they deceptively classified cases as domestic violence cases when they did not actually fit these parameters in reality. “It appears instead that the FBI is more focused on classifying investigations to meet a woke left-wing agenda,” Jordan wrote.
If it turns out that the whistleblowers are telling the truth – and it would not be a surprise if they are – this is a scandal of epic proportions. The Justice Department was literally exaggerating the threat of white supremacist violence to convince the public that racially-motivated attacks are on the horizon. They sought to frighten minorities – Democrats’ most important voting block – into believing they could be under attack by racist terrorists. To put it simply, Democrats used the federal government to spread its race-based propaganda to support the notion that America is still a hopelessly racist nation.
The fact that nobody will face any punishment, if it turns out the whistleblowers’ claims are true, is even more infuriating. A scandal this huge should result in the rolling of heads. But we know this is not going to happen. When one makes it to a certain level in the federal government, they become untouchable. The question is: Will there ever be a time when these folks are held accountable?
