OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
An advisory board to the Department of Homeland Security classified supporters of former President Donald Trump as a potential terrorist threat.
The board, named “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” was formed in September 2023 to analyze terrorist threats and fentanyl trafficking, The Daily Caller reported.
In what should be no surprise, the “experts” on the board included anti-Trumpers like former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe.
These are among the same people who signed a document that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was likely Russia propaganda before it was proven to be legitimate.
The Daily Caller reported:
Internal documents obtained by AFL show the board characterizing “supporters of the former president” as constituting “most of the Domestic Terrorism threat” in the United States. The documents also classified traits such as having served “in the military” and being “religious” as “indicators of extremists and terrorism,” citing unnamed research.
Military personnel are less likely to be supporters of radical political causes than other Americans, according to a 2023 RAND Corporation study. Nevertheless, suspicions of extremism in the military were popular among Democrats in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, as 15 Democrat lawmakers signed a letter in 2021 urging Inspector General Sean O’Donnell to “take action on this wave of violent extremism” in the military.
AFL on Thursday released the first collection of documents that detailed the committee’s desire to increase information collection on Americans, including getting “mothers” and “teachers” to report on children suspected of extremism under the pretext of “public health.” The committee cited the model of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign after 9/11, which was an initiative by the DHS to encourage American citizens to report potential terror threats.
AFL and former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell filed a lawsuit that ultimately led to the advisory panel being closed.
“These inflammatory records reveal the interworkings of the illegal partisan committee that we proudly stopped,” AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “All Americans should be alarmed about the contents of these records. All efforts to weaponize the federal government against political opponents of the ruling regime should be stopped.”
But while DHS was concerned with supporters of former President Donald Trump, a group of people with ties to ISIS managed to sneak into the United States via the Southern border.
According to a report from NBC News, the eight illegal immigrant terrorists that were arrested have suspected connections to ISIS and had crossed into the US over the southern border. The suspects had been on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force radar and were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, three people familiar with the matter told the outlet on Tuesday.
At least one of the men used the CBP One app to get into the US in the spring of 2023. Another crossed at the same time. A senior government official told NBC News that the FBI was monitoring the group for several months to keep tabs on their activities. The CBP One app is used by illegal immigrants to obtain permission from the federal government to travel to the US and obtain an appointment to apply for asylum at the border and obtain a court date. No official papers or identification are needed to set up a profile on the CBP One app.
“Over the last few days, ICE agents arrested several non-citizens pursuant to immigration authorities,” the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in a joint statement. “The actions were carried out in close coordination with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”
The eight suspected terrorists have not been charged with a terror plot. However, the FBI told ICE that they needed to be arrested because of their connection with the terrorist group.
