The White House really really really wants us to believe that domestic terrorism coming from far right-wing groups poses a dire threat to the republic. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been warning for the past year that the nation is vulnerable to supposed white supremacist terrorism posing a danger to national security.
However, there do not appear to be many developments bearing out this assumption. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden has decided to extend the declaration of a national emergency in relation to domestic terrorism for another year. In a statement on the White House’s website, he announced:
The actions of persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For this reason, the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001, as amended, and the measures adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 23, 2022. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism declared in Executive Order 13224, as amended.
However, there might be some issues with this. The president’s pronouncement comes as multiple whistleblowers in the FBI have claimed that the Bureau is juicing the numbers when it comes to threats of white nationalist violence and has even deprioritized other important crimes in favor of searching for the elusive right-wing terrorist threat.
The Washington Times reported that “Rank-and-file FBI agents are accusing the Biden administration of exaggerating the threat of White supremacists and pressuring agents to cook up domestic terrorist cases involving racist extremists.”
From the report:
Current and former FBI agents told The Washington Times that the perceived White supremacist threat is overblown by the administration. They said top bureau officials are pressuring FBI agents to create domestic terrorist cases and tag people as White supremacists to meet internal metrics.
“The demand for White supremacy” coming from FBI headquarters “vastly outstrips the supply of White supremacy,” said one agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We have more people assigned to investigate White supremacists than we can actually find.”
These claims come after Biden’s “United We Stand” summit held last Thursday at the White House. The president announced at the event the creation of a Justice Department task force designed to crack down on domestic extremist violence.
The agent said those pushing for this questionable initiative “have already determined that White supremacy is a problem” and have imposed policy designed to prioritize potential racially-motivated domestic extremism cases.
“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” he elaborated. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a ranking on the House Judiciary Committee, discussed a letter he sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray during an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in which he described the evidence given to him by a whistleblower.
“The mystery whistleblower accused the FBI of breaking its own procedures and miscategorizing case files to create an illusion of a new violent extremism crisis rapidly emerging across the U.S. – as suggested by President Biden in his public address earlier this month,” according to Fox News.
The whistleblower indicated that the majority of these cases that the Bureau has labeled as extremism are related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, not situations indicating an actual increase in domestic violence coming from the right.
Meanwhile, Republicans serving on the House Judiciary Committee posted a letter on Twitter from another whistleblower, who contends that the Bureau had field offices nationwide with open cases focusing on the Jan. 6 riot, instead of running them through the Washington Field Office as is standard procedure.
The whistleblower says he was informed that cases related to “child sexual abuse” were no longer to be made a priority and that agents should focus their attention on investigations into “domestic violent extremism.”
Jordan told Carlson that the Bureau is “juicing the numbers and cooking the books” and asserted that the agency is trying to exaggerate the threat posed by domestic extremists. “They are so focused on this they are willing to pull agency [resources] from child trafficking cases to foster this narrative,” he said.
The representative continued:
“Previous whistleblowers who came to us and said that they were pressured to label cases as domestic violence extremism. This whistleblower came forward and talked to us about how they’re cooking the books making the numbers seem like there are cases across the country, but they are all related to January 6th. And now what’s happened, today we learned this newest whistleblower has been suspended from his job.”
#BREAKING: New whistleblower information reveals that the FBI is moving agents off of child sexual abuse investigations to instead pursue political investigations.
The whistleblower recounted being told that “child sexual abuse investigations were no longer an FBI priority.” pic.twitter.com/EBXrnVWhO6
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) September 20, 2022
So, what is going on here? What is Biden’s FBI hoping to achieve by focusing on seemingly nonexistent threats coming from white supremacist far right-wing organizations?
From where I sit, this just seems to be yet another way to politicize the FBI by scaring the nation into believing that the “MAGA Republican” extremists are a danger to “democracy.” Perhaps they are hoping to find – or concoct – a scheme to carry out violent attacks against civilians before the upcoming midterm elections to further vilify the right.
So far, the nation has seen one white supremacist terror attack since Biden took office last year. The mass shooting in Buffalo, New York is a tragic example, but it does not indicate that white supremacist terrorist activity is somehow on the rise. Indeed, even the left was more focused on using that atrocity to push gun control than on promoting the notion that white supremacists are lurking behind every corner looking to attack black folks like me.
In the end, this is nothing more than an effort to use the FBI to perpetuate a false narrative designed to influence the political landscape. But, even this will not be enough to save the Democrats’ bacon in November.
