It's been true for years now, and it remains true today: the largest terrorism threat to the United States remains white supremacist domestic terrorists bent on destroying democracy in America and establishing a white ethno-state through military insurrection. The Biden Administration is not mincing words when it comes to the scope of the threat, either.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas told senators on Wednesday that the greatest domestic threat facing the United States came from what they both called “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.”
“Specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race,” Mr. Garland told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The cabinet secretaries’ comments reflected a dramatic shift in tone from the Trump administration, which deliberately downplayed the threat from white supremacists and similar groups, in part to elevate the profile of what former President Donald J. Trump described as violent threats from radical left-wing groups.
Last year, a former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch filed a whistle-blower complaint in which he accused the department of blocking a report about the threat of violent extremism and described white supremacists as having been “exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent targeted attacks in recent years.”
Mr. Mayorkas told senators on Wednesday, “The department is taking a new approach to addressing domestic violent extremism, both internally and externally.”
As Mr. Garland and Mr. Mayorkas testified before the Appropriations Committee, former members of the Trump administration told the House Oversight Committee that Mr. Trump’s false claims to have won the 2020 election had fueled the domestic terrorism threat, a point many Republican lawmakers have rejected. Earlier on Wednesday, House Republicans ousted Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her leadership position for publicly pushing back on Mr. Trump’s claims, in the latest sign of Mr. Trump’s continued hold on the party.
While the Justice and Homeland Security Departments have long been involved in countering violent extremism inside the country, Biden administration officials have said the Jan. 6 pro-Trump riot at the Capitol showed an urgent need to focus more on domestic extremism.
Republicans are trying to do anything they can to change the subject from their own assistance to these Trumpist terrorists to blaming Black Lives Matter, because Republicans agree with the goals of these terrorists. Attorney General Merrick Garland was more than ready for the GOP.
Senate Republicans did not share that focus on Wednesday and instead grilled Mr. Garland and Mr. Mayorkas on border security issues.
The top Republican on the committee, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, said that Democrats were politicizing the issue by describing violent domestic extremists as coming from the far right.
He equated the Capitol riot to the protests against police violence last summer, and asked Mr. Garland why the Justice Department seemed to be prioritizing pursuing the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 attack over those who looted shops and attacked law enforcement during racial justice protests.
Mr. Garland said that “if there has to be a hard hierarchy of things that we prioritize,” the Jan. 6 attack would be at the top because it most threated democracy.
“I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Mr. Garland said, calling it “an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy, a peaceful transfer of power.”
“That does not mean that we don’t focus on other threats and that we don’t focus on other crimes,” he said.
I'm betting about now Mitch McConnell is maybe reconsidering his decision to block Garland's path to the Supreme Court. He'd still have a 5-4 conservative majority now, but Garland is way out of Mitch's league as AG.
We'll see how this goes. I still don't see any federal indictments for Trump officials in the future, the chance of deadly violence is just too high, not to mention making a martyr out of someone. I know it needs to happen, but the price is something we have to be willing to pay, and I don't think we're ready to even have that discussion yet.
I don't know. We'll see. Merrick Garland knows a lot of things that I do not, and that's a good thing.
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