SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
fbi
White House Budget Details FBI Office Dedicated to Spying on Those Who Oppose Trump's 'Extremist Agenda'
"If your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI," said journalist Ken Klippenstein.
Apr 07, 2026
Along with cutting environmental, housing, and health programs and proposing an increase of nearly $500 billion in military spending, President Donald Trump's new budget proposal shows how the White House "wants to use taxpayer dollars to spy on those who oppose its extremist agenda," one Democratic congresswoman said Monday evening.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Penn.) was referring to the budget's description of a new FBI center that is already working to root out what the White House broadly defined as "domestic terrorism" in a federal memo last year.
As independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote this week, buried in Trump's budget request—which includes $12.5 billion for the FBI to invest in counterterrorism efforts and other spending—is the White House's latest assertion that "domestic terrorists... pose an elevated threat to the Homeland."
"In recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased," reads the budget's section on domestic terrorism. "Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the US government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility to those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and mortality."
The views described echo National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), the memo signed last September that directed federal agencies to develop a national strategy to "investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence" in order to stop violent attacks before they happen.
But despite the administration's singular focus on groups and individuals who hold left-wing, anti-capitalism views and subscribe to belief systems other than Christianity, the National Institute of Justice found that since 1990, 227 attacks motivated by right-wing views killed 520 people, while far-left groups carried out 42 attacks that killed 78 people. The NIJ study was removed from the US Department of Justice website shortly after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk—an event that Trump explicitly blamed on left-wing groups without evidence, and which came weeks before the signing of NSPM-7.
The budget proposal explains that as a result of NSPM-7, the FBI recently created the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center (JMC), which is run by personnel from 10 federal agencies.
"The JMC is working to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence by integrating intelligence operational support, and financial analysis to proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors," reads the proposal.
Scanlon is one of a small number of elected Democrats who have spoken out about NSPM-7 in congressional hearings and media interviews.
"If anyone can be labeled a domestic terrorist for speech opposing this administration, our First Amendment rights are under grave threat," said Scanlon recently.
Klippenstein noted that the budget document describes social media platforms and encrypted communications apps as being used by "domestic terrorists" to "recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials encouraging radicalization and mobilization to violence.”
FBI Director Kash Patel told Congress that anyone who used the Discord channels used by Tyler Robinson, who was accused of killing Kirk, would be investigated by the agency.
Klippenstein noted that the FBI's domestic terrorism watchlist, which as of last September listed about 5,000 US citizens, reportedly "is growing."
"If your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI," Klippenstein wrote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
FBI Disrupts Plot to Assassinate Head of Pro-Palestinian Rights Group in New York
"This disturbing case underscores the growing climate of harassment, threats, and violence directed at those speaking out on Palestinian human rights and other social justice issues."
Mar 27, 2026
Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder of the Palestinian rights group Within Our Lifetime, emphasized on Friday that public threats and violent rhetoric from a sitting Republican congressman and a Zionist organization had preceded the news that there was an active plot to assassinate her.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force notified Kiswani and her legal team on Thursday night that "a plot against my life... was 'about to' take place, and that agents had conducted an operation in Hoboken [New Jersey] related to this plot."
The US attorney's office in New Jersey said Alexander Heifler, 26, had been charged with one count of unlawful possession of destructive devices and one count of making destructive devices, and was accused of plotting to attack Kiswani's residence with molotov cocktails. Another man had been charged in connection with the plot as well.
An undercover officer infiltrated a group call in which Heifler allegedly asked for assistance with "molotovs." The suspect also told the undercover officer he had an address for the "victim," the formal complaint reads. The officer was at Heifler's home on Thursday when he assembled about eight molotov cocktails on Thursday.
In a joint statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its New York chapter urged "a full and transparent investigation, appropriate prosecution of those responsible, and continued vigilance by law enforcement to protect all communities from hate-driven violence."
Kiswani's organization has held protests in New York that have drawn hundreds of supporters, particularly since Israel began its US-backed war on Gaza in 2023 and public opposition to the Israeli government and the United States' support for it decreased substantially.
Like other Palestinian rights groups, supporters of Israel's government have accused Within Our Lifetime of antisemitism, but Kiswani and other organizers have vehemently denied those accustions.
Group members and supporters frequently chant: “Judaism, yes, Zionism no! The state of Israel has got to go!” at protests.
On Friday, Kiswani noted that the pro-Israel group Betar and US Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has long been known for making openly Islamophobic statements, including against Muslim members of Congress, "encouraged violence against" the organizer and her family.
Last month, Kiswani filed a civil rights lawsuit against Betar, alleging it had subjected her to physical intimidation and racially motivated threats that went "far beyond protected speech."
"It has used its social media accounts to publicly offer cash rewards to anyone who would hand Ms Kiswani a beeper, a direct reference to Israel’s 2024 use of exploding pagers to kill Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon. On multiple occasions, Betar affiliates physically confronted Ms Kiswani on public sidewalks and at demonstrations, cornering her, and shouting threats," Kiswani's attorneys said.
Kiswani said the group's threats amounted to them putting "bounties" on her head.
In response to the news of the assassination plot, Betar on Friday called Kiswani a "violent terrorist."
"Not surprising if other terrorists targeted her," said the group on social media. "Palestinians have always targeted one another. Not surprising given the violent nature of these people who have globalized the intifada."
In January, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an agreement in which Betar said it would dissolve its New York operations and stop its “widespread persecution of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Jewish New Yorkers” who disagree with its stance on Israel and Palestine.
The Times reported that there was no indication that Betar was connected to the plot on Kiswani's life.
Kiswani has also been targeted by Fine, a notorious anti-Muslim bigot who responded to a satirical post by the organizer last month about dogs being "unclean" by saying, "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
CAIR and CAIR-NY said that "no one in our nation should face violence or intimidation because of their identity, advocacy, or political views."
"We welcome law enforcement’s disruption of the alleged plot to firebomb the home of Palestinian-American activist Nerdeen Kiswani," said the groups. "This disturbing case underscores the growing climate of harassment, threats, and violence directed at those speaking out on Palestinian human rights and other social justice issues. Such actions not only endanger individuals but also threaten the fundamental freedoms of speech and civic engagement."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump FBI and IRS Team Up to Probe US Nonprofit Groups for 'Domestic Terrorism' Links
"This is repression carried out by the state for electoral purposes. It's about stamping out your objections to their autocratic aims," said one critic.
Mar 18, 2026
A Wednesday CBS News report claimed that the FBI and Internal Revenue Service are "forming a new initiative to investigate nonprofit organizations over suspected possible links to domestic terrorism."
According to CBS News, the new initiative is the agencies' response to a December memo written by Attorney General Pam Bondi requiring the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse "extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment."
A government official told CBS News that the FBI-IRS initiative would focus on "exploring potential funding streams at nonprofits that support domestic terrorism or political violence."
But Tom Brzozowski, former domestic terrorism counsel at the DOJ's National Security Division, told CBS News he was concerned by the broad scope of investigatory activities outlined in Bondi's memo, and he questioned whether the DOJ had established the proper predication to justify amassing a list of nonprofit groups to be targeted in a criminal probe.
"If you're going to pull down information and retain it in a government data set, you have to have predication to do that," Brzozowski emphasized, "especially if you're looking at it through an investigative lens."
Bondi's December memo was written in response to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in September that demanded a "national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
Rights groups have for months been sounding the alarm about the implications of NSPM-7, which they said could be used to initiative a widespread crackdown against the Trump administration's critics.
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Health, wrote that news of the FBI-IRS initiative was a "periodic reminder that Trump’s DOJ changed the indicators of domestic terrorism to include pro-immigrant, pro-LBTQ, anti-Trump, and anti-capitalist speech."
Journalist Marcy Wheeler wrote that the FBI's initiative with the IRS shows it's "trying to criminalize dissent over protecting against Islamic and antisemitic terrorism that Trump has stoked with his illegal war" against Iran.
Journalist Diego Fonseca noted that going after nonprofit groups has long been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes seeking to consolidate power.
"[Salvadoran President Nayib] Bukele has treated nongovernmental organizations as 'foreign agents,'" Fonseca observed, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán "has a 'Transparency Law' targeting civil society orgs. Left or right, it’s the authoritarian playbook: round up and paralyze any possible criticism."
Matt Ortega, a Democrat running to represent California's 14th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives, warned that the FBI-IRS initiative was a sign of a widespread crackdown against political opposition.
"They called Alex Pretti a 'domestic terrorist' and only backtracked because witnesses had NFL-like coverage of the incident," Ortega wrote. "This is repression carried out by the state for electoral purposes. It's about stamping out your objections to their autocratic aims."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular