U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a Memorandum for all Federal Prosecutors, Law Enforcement Agencies and Department of Justice Grant-Making Components “implementing” President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. It significantly expands the kind of thinking that can be considered in defining terrorism.
“Acts of domestic terrorism … will be zealously investigated and prosecuted,” she says. “Such acts may include organized rioting, looting, doxing, and swatting; and conspiracies to impede or assault law enforcement, destroy property or engage in violent civil disorder.”
“Domestic terrorists use violence or the threat of violence to advance political and social agendas, including opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; … hostility towards traditional views on family, religion and morality; and an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes, such as political assignations.”
You Need to Know…. This is an extraordinary list of terroristic views. Is it terroristic to have organized demonstrations that oppose illegal actions by ICE agents? Is it “radical gender ideology” to believe that members of the LGBTQ+ community have legal rights and should be treated as other citizens? Is it terroristic to have views that someone in the Department of Justice thinks are “anti-American, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity” or express hostility towards “traditional views on family, religion, and morality”? It used to be a fundamental First Amendment right of all Americans to have divergent views on these issues.
We can all agree that efforts to provoke violence to advance a political or social agenda should be prosecuted, but holding “extreme views” is not a punishable offense and the kind of view that leads to violence should not be relevant to the investigation.
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