"Disrupt, Identify, Defund, Debank, Arrest & Prosecute": Trump Admin Threatens Leftist Groups

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House adviser Stephen Miller are pushing for a global crackdown on leftist organizations. On Thursday, hours before President Trump's primetime address, the State Department hosted an international summit where Miller described the left as, quote, enemies of civilization. This is part of Stephen Miller's speech. Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action of formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our Republican form of government. President Trump issued a directive in our parlance. It's called a National Security Presidential Memorandum, or NSPM, NSPM-7, to be exact, that directs for the first time in American history all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country. It's very important to understand that left-wing political terrorism seeks as its ultimate end the overthrow of our system and form of government. On Thursday, the State Department announced new visa restrictions targeting what it calls, quote, members of far-left terrorists and other aligned groups. Secretary of State Rubio talked about targeting anti-fascist organizations. The president signed National Security Presidential Memorandum No. 7, outlining a comprehensive strategy to investigate and disrupt Antifa terror networks and their allies. Last November, the State Department designated four violent far-left extremist groups as foreign terrorist organizations, and there will be more designations soon. We're joined now by two guests, Mike German, former FBI special agent specializing in domestic terrorism and covert operations, his latest book Policing White Supremacy, The Enemy Within, also author of Disrupt, Discredit and Divide, How the New FBI Damages Democracy. And we're joined by Ken Klippenstein in Madison, Wisconsin, independent investigative journalist who's been closely following the Trump administration's designation of left-wing activism as terrorism. Ken, let's begin with you. Lay out what happened at the so-called terrorism summit yesterday and what caused you most alarm. Well, it was an extraordinary event, because it pulled in representatives over 65 different countries to discuss the supposed threat of political terrorism, and that's kind of how it was touted to the press in the run-up to the event. But any pretense that this was going to be a neutral look at the threat of different political groups quickly fell by the wayside, as they introduced a term which I have never heard before, which is far-left terrorism, or FLT is the acronym they're using to describe this new purported threat. And if you look at the language they've used to describe this event, the White House put out an admirably frank press release yesterday describing the event as prioritizing a counterterrorism approach that treats the political left with the same, quote, ferocity as we have fought traditional jihadi groups in the past. So they're putting left-wing political groups in the United States and abroad on the same footing as groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. And can the legal basis of requiring intelligence organizations that are directed abroad to begin to do internal investigations and internal repression within the U.S.? Yeah, so there's actually no domestic terrorism statute, but that doesn't stop the FBI from using that distinction internally for them to predicate and open investigations into these groups and bringing up charges unrelated to that against the individuals. And that's an important distinction worth noting, because I think early on the press kind of overlooked, a lot of the mainstream press overlooked this story, saying, oh, there's no domestic terrorism statute, nothing can happen. That means you can't be charged for domestic terrorism. That doesn't mean that domestic terrorism can't be used as the predicate for the FBI to go and open up investigations into these groups that they might not be able to open up otherwise. We saw a great example of that in the sentences that were handed down to the anti-ICE protesters in Texas recently, in Prairieville, Texas. If you look at the sentences, they were extraordinary. It was almost, I'm not exaggerating, half a millennium of years in federal prison, including 30 years for somebody who wasn't even present at the thing, for moving left-wing literature around, which they alleged to be obstruction of justice. So this is very real. This is not just Trump rhetoric that I think it was regarded as early on. This is a policy that they're very serious about pursuing, and they have the legal architecture to do so, particularly because of the global war on terror and the system that that created. I'd like to bring in Mike German into the conversation, former FBI special agent, your most recent book, Policing White Supremacy, The Enemy Within. Talk about the historic role of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in terms of dealing with far-right extremists in this country. Thanks for having me. So it's a bit of a misnomer that there isn't a domestic terrorism statute. There's an entire chapter of the U.S. Criminal Code called terrorism, and it lists 57 federal crimes of terrorism, 52 of which apply to domestic terrorists. As an FBI agent in the 1990s, I investigated neo-Nazi groups engaged in violent and criminal activity. I investigated anti-government militia groups. Nobody suggested we didn't have sufficient laws to address this issue. The laws distinguish, however, international terrorism from domestic terrorism and give investigators greater access to investigative tools and allow investigators to target not just terrorists, not just people who are committing crimes or assisting those committing crimes or committing violent acts, but to attack people two or three degrees separated. And that's what I think this meeting is about, because it's focusing on the designation of left-wing groups as foreign terrorist groups. And that's what will allow them to start targeting civil society in a way that, in the same way that the Bush administration targeted Muslim and Arab civil society in the United States during the global war on terrorism. So basically the purpose of this meeting is to reframe the discussion around domestic terrorism to imagine that it has these foreign connections that justify the use of these much more aggressive tools to target, again, people look at the material support for terrorism statute and think that it helps target terrorists. But the purpose of it is to target people who are not terrorists, who are engaging in activities that are not criminal, but the government alleges that through a series of arguments, in the end, benefit terrorist groups abroad. And that's what's dangerous because we saw how those laws were employed in the United States during the global war on terrorism, where Muslim American charities were shut down, where Muslim American civil rights group were denigrated by the FBI director and law enforcement officials, without giving them a forum in which they could defend themselves, without laying actual criminal charges and basically seizing assets, without ever showing evidence of wrongdoing. And, you know, in your book, Mike German, Policing White Supremacy, as you talk about FBI and law enforcement not collecting data around far-right extremist violence, using their resources to target left-wing political organizations, it's intensifying now, but it's been going on even though the State Department and other governments' own reports say white nationalists are the greatest threats, commit the vast majority of political violence in this country. And the last minute we have, can you predict where this is all going now? I think what we're going to see is a serious escalation of Trump's campaign of retribution against his perceived political enemies. So we've already seen organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which investigates and publishes information about far-right extremists, be charged with criminal offenses. We've seen 15 anti-ice protesters in Minneapolis charged with very serious terrorism-related crimes. And this effort to designate left-wing groups as foreign terrorists, again, using these broad terms like Antifa, will allow them to go after people who are not committing violence, but who are simply engaging in the political process. And for more of our audience-supported journalism, go to democracynow.org, where you can download our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to The Daily Podcast and so much more.