FBI Ramps Up Spending to Fight MAGA Terrorism

By William M. Arkin On 12/05/22 at 5:00 AM EST

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The FBI is conducting three times as many domestic terrorism investigations than it was five years ago, with 70 percent of its open cases focused on "civil unrest" and anti-government activity, according to FBI documents and government specialists. The Bureau has also quietly changed the general classification of white supremacy, antisemitism, abortion-, and anti-LGBTQI -related extremism to "hate crimes" rather than "terrorism." Since terrorism remains the top national security priority, this has lowered the visibility and resources dedicated to those issues.

The FBI considers all violent acts (and threats of violence) with a political motive to be terrorism, a senior government official explains to Newsweek. But not all acts of extremism are considered terrorism. "If an act is focused on the government, it's terrorism," the source says. "But if extremism is focused on private individuals or institutions, it's considered just a crime or classified as a hate crime." The source was granted anonymity to speak about classified matters.

On one level, the senior government source says, this is a more precise definition of domestic terrorism: the label is applied only to acts with political motives and mass casualties. But in reality, the tweaked classification inserts the FBI and counterterror investigators into the political life of the nation.

According to internal FBI numbers obtained by Newsweek, "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism" was considered the prime threat (and dominated investigations) before January 6. Since then, anti-government, "anti-authority" and civil unrest cases have taken over as the number one threat, making up almost 90 percent of all investigations.

"A hate crime is targeted violence motivated by the offender's bias against a person's actual or perceived characteristics," said an FBI report issued in October, "while a DT [domestic terrorism] incident involves acts dangerous to human life that are in violation of criminal laws and in furtherance of a social or political goal." As the number of cases involving politics has expanded, the FBI has doubled the number of agents working on the subject.

"It's not because the FBI is partisan, but more because society … and Washington remains obsessed with January 6 and Donald Trump," says the senior government official. "It doesn't matter whether the activity is left or right, anti-Biden or anti-Trump," the official says. "That's the pool of suspected terrorists. In other words, the focus now is political terrorism."

Of 2,700 open cases, where an individual or group of individuals has been designated domestic terrorists by the FBI, almost a third relate to the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol or subsequent political activity connected to it. Since then, the counter-terrorism agencies have also focused on the transnational links of domestic individuals and groups—an approach that provides the intelligence agencies more authority to conduct surveillance and intrusive collection of information.

Domestic terrorism investigations are being conducted in all fifty states and in all 56 FBI field offices, the FBI says, with more than double the number of investigators assigned to domestic terrorism work since January 6. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on November 17, discussing the number of open cases and what the FBI labels "domestic violent extremism."

"Individuals based and operating primarily within the United States or its territories without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power who seek to further political or social goals, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence are described as DVEs [domestic violent extremists]," Wray told the Committee. (Foreign-inspired domestic terrorists are called HVEs, homeland violent extremists.)

The FBI uses five categories to describe violent extremism: Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVEs), including white supremacists; Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists (AGAAVEs), including everyone from militias to Antifa; violent extremism associated with "civil unrest"; animal rights/environmental violent extremists; and abortion-related violent extremists.

https://www.newsweek.com/2022/12/23/fbi-ramps-spending-fight-maga-terrorism-1764498.html

Doubling Down

>>17884302

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As of October 1, 2021, according to the latest FBI numbers, 69 percent of all investigations relate to anti-government and civil unrest-related acts. Military-related investigations constitute the most rapidly growing group since 2020. Racially and ethnically motivated acts constitute just 19 percent of the total number of investigations. Animal rights and environmental investigations make up one percent. Currently, there are no abortion-related extremism investigations that are labeled domestic terrorism. (The last abortion-related domestic terrorism investigation closed in September 2020, according to FBI records.)

About 11 percent of open investigations also fall into a sixth category: "all other." In aNovember 13, 2021 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI said: "We are … increasingly seeing terrorism threats that do not fall neatly into categories: a growing number of subjects are individuals who are ascribing to blended or mixed ideologies, or even individualized belief systems, to justify their desire to commit violence."

In all categories, threats against law enforcement (the FBI itself and other law enforcement agencies) as well as towards government facilities has also tripled since January 6. "The domestic terrorism apparatus has naturally gravitated towards threats to law enforcement personnel and government facilities," the senior U.S. government official says. The Justice Department says that anti-government extremists have also targeted the military as well as U.S. government officials and members of Congress. "In other words," the official says, "Washington is obsessed with threats to Washington itself."

The effects of January 6 on the FBI's domestic terrorism work cannot be overstated. "During President Biden's first week in office," Attorney General Merrick Garland said, "he directed the Administration to undertake an assessment of the domestic terrorism threat." That assessment concluded that DVEs who were undertaking violent acts posed "an elevated threat to the Homeland." The number of FBI domestic terrorism investigations increased "significantly" in 2021, says FBI Director Wray. He told a Congressional oversight committee that the threat was "metastasizing across the country."

In March 2021, Wray said that the number of domestic terrorism investigations grew from around 1,000 when he became FBI director in 2017 to about 1,400 at the end of 2020. With the riot on January 6, that number doubled by March 2022. "We've surged personnel …" Wray said this year, "more than doubling the number of people working that threat from a year before."

In mid-2021, the Biden administration issued a new National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security conducted its own Counterterrorism and Targeted Violence Posture Review. While most of the homeland security agencies are focused on international (or foreign-inspired) terrorism, DHS is also the primary government agency charged with protecting "critical infrastructure" including election systems, even those in private hands.

The FBI, now focusing on political activity, has to date charged more than 850 individuals with crimes associated with the breach of the Capitol building on January 6—and the entire group is treated as domestic terrorists. "The Bureau isn't partisan per se," says a senior FBI official, "though it finds itself investigating mostly MAGA and related political activity as domestic terrorism. Right-wing-oriented domestic terrorists—suspected terrorists—account for more than 80 percent of all cases in the anti-government category." The rest are associated with left-wing grievances or indeterminate political origins.

In conducting its investigations, the FBI says that it distinguishes between domestic terrorism and non-violent protest or "First Amendment" activity. "We can never open an investigation based solely around protected First Amendment rights," a FBI senior official said at a background briefing to the new media in February 2021. "We cannot and do not investigate ideology. We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence or criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security."

"The FBI holds sacred the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment freedoms," Wray said right after January 6. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsenreiterated this point early this year, saying, "It is important to emphasize that we investigate and prosecute domestic violent extremists for their criminal acts, not for their beliefs or based on their associations."

>>17884319

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The senior FBI official though,granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, explained to Newsweekthat people's associations are, in practice, exactly what drives the FBI's thinking and its approach to thwarting domestic terrorism. First, organized crime dominated the Bureau's work, as a legacy institution, and it tends to see and look for conspiracies. The organized crime focus morphed after 9/11 to mapping and chasing new networks: al Qaeda, Hizb'allah, al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and ISIS.

Second, though the FBI insists that it always has legal justification to open an investigation (that it is not just fishing for people to designate domestic terrorists), its work is dominated by investigations of groups and networks. Its pool of suspected terrorists includes those 850 arrested so far for crimes committed on January 6, plus militia groups, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Sovereign citizens, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Earth First, and on and on.

The FBI says that its greatest challenge is "lone wolves," those unaffiliated individuals who radicalize to violence alone, but the Bureau's natural tendency is to look for conspiracies. In its November 2021 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI conceded as much, saying that the Bureau "conducts comprehensive [domestic terrorism] investigations that build out criminal or terrorist networks to determine who is involved in the criminal activity and identify co-conspirators."

A third factor in adding new domestic terrorism investigations is the FBI practice, in its intelligence collection and link-analysis of suspected terrorists, of looking at family and friends of suspects—at the "networks" that are not necessarily the result of organized groups. A key part of post-January 6 investigative activities has been to look at these associates and to follow threads of family and friend connections (particularly on social media) to scout for links and co-conspirators, particularly as the FBI seeks to stop possible future terrorism.

After the 9/11 attacks, a new paradigm took over as the national strategy of dealing with terrorism. Rather than just conduct investigations after events occurred, now the focus was on preventing them in the first place. Stopping terrorism before it happens has been the entire career focus of most FBI agents and intelligence analysts in the 20-year war on terrorism, and is now being applied to domestic terrorism. The FBI and the Intelligence Community are already significantly increasing their monitoring of social media and working more closely with local law enforcement to uncover potential plots and monitor individuals and groups. The scrutiny itself may make it more likely that those who have a grievance with the government will intensify their activities.

As the questions relating to domestic terrorism become more politicized—Who is a terrorist? Is the government going after the right wing? Is it stifling free speech?—the FBI has also made administrative changes that skew its own numbers. In 2019, some categories of extremism previously labeled domestic terrorism, such as abortion-related extremism and antisemitic and anti-Asian acts, were removed from the "terrorism" category (and under the authority of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division). The Civil Rights and Criminal Divisions now deal with the majority of cases that many Americans associate with terrorism. Recognizing that there is some nexus with its newly created distinction, the FBI has established a Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell to address the intersection.

This change in record-keeping accounts for the fact that there are no abortion-related domestic terrorism investigations, even in the heated environment following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. In 2020, the last year for which there are reliable numbers, law enforcement agencies reported 8,263 hate crime incidents in the United States. Only one percent of all domestic terrorism investigations that year were categorized as abortion-extremism related. In fiscal year 2021, there were none. FBI sources say that there are no abortion-related cases designated domestic terrorism cases as of October 2022.

"It might be jarring to some people [the reclassification of abortion-related acts] but we've become too prone to labeling anything we don't like as extremism, and then any extremist as a terrorist…. Perhaps the silver lining is that we're due for a deeper look overall into these definitions, and what are the actual threats," the senior FBI official wrote to Newsweek.

>>17884324

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"A couple of thousand domestic terror investigations just doesn't constitute a threat to the country, or to democracy," the senior government official added, assessing the overall threat of domestic terrorism. "Of course violence is unacceptable, but it is also just a crime. We don't need to label Americans who break the law or who brandish guns or who oppose the government as terrorists, and to do so, [that] places the FBI in the middle of a larger sickness tearing at our society."

FBI director Wray seems to agree, saying that "non-violent protests are signs of a healthy democracy, not an ailing one."

"Scratch the surface and the number of Americans who want to overthrow the government or even weaken democracy is tiny," says the senior government official. "But the numbers give a wrong impression, when it is just the bureaucracy doing what it does best—serving its own interests."

refuted-story-about-antifa-infiltrating-capitol-riot.jpg

FBI ramps up spending to fight MAGA terrorism

newsweek.com

>>17884302

I guess they think, now that info came out on 2020 election, lets pivot to the real problem!

>>17884324

“This change in record-keeping accounts for the fact that there are no abortion-related domestic terrorism investigations, even in the heated environment following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. In 2020, the last year for which there are reliable numbers, law enforcement agencies reported 8,263 hate crime incidents in the United States. Only one percent of all domestic terrorism investigations that year were categorized as abortion-extremism related.In fiscal year 2021, there were none. FBI sources say that there are no abortion-related cases designated domestic terrorism cases as of October 2022”

I guess the fire bombing of churches and unwed mothers homes spurred on by Roe vs Wade, or the SC Justices lived threatened, are not that bad! Wow

>>17884319

“In March 2021, Wray said that the number of domestic terrorism investigations grew from around 1,000 when he became FBI director in 2017 toabout 1,400 at the end of 2020. With the riot on January 6, that number doubled by March 2022. "We've surged personnel …" Wray said this year, "more than doubling the number of people working that threat from a year before."

So the thinking is the Floyd riots in 2020 where close to 30 people died, and billions done in damage to homes, businesses and municipal buildingsfell off the tracking map, certainly that wasnt as bad as J6, hmm

Darren Beattie On FBI Ramp Up Spending Against MAGA

Bannons War Room

December 5, 2022

2,008 Views

Exclusive: Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at the Capitol

In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.

William M. ArkinOn 1/3/22 at 5:00 AM EST

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On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.

Right after the New Year, Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting Attorney General on January 6, approved implementation of long-standing contingency plans dealing with the most extreme possibilities: an attack on President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, and a declaration of measures to implement continuity of government, requiring protection and movement of presidential successors.

Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. There was no formal request from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the Metropolitan Police Department—in fact, no external request from any agency. The leadership in Justice and the FBI anticipated the worst and decided to act independently, the special operations forces lurking behind the scenes.

"I believe that DOJ [Department of Justice] reasonably prepared for contingencies ahead of January 6, understanding that there was considerable uncertainty as to how many people would arrive, who those people would be, and precisely what purposes they would pursue," Rosen later told Congress. He stressed that his department "no frontline role with respect to crowd control," that they were focused on "high-risk" operations.

The contingency units meeting on January 3 included the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI's national "Render Safe" team, an FBI SWAT team from the Baltimore Field Office, Special Response Teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group.

All of these assets were "pre-deployed" and ready to go over the weekend of January 2-3, staging out of the FBI Academy complex in Quantico, 30 miles south of the Capitol building. If a WMD or terrorist attack occurred, the units were to move via helicopter to the site of the incident. The activation of the catastrophic response units, operating under plans already approved by President Trump, entailed an automatic green light allowing federal responders to take the initiative and spare no resources, including shoot-to-kill authority, to deal with this most extraordinary condition.

The 350-strong Hostage Rescue Team was established in 1983 to be a national level counterterrorist unit, offering a "tactical" option—a military option—for the most extraordinary law enforcement situations within the United States. Prior to 9/11, HRT was primarily a domestic counter-terrorism unit; after the attack, the team took on additional missions, including working with the Joint Special Operations Command overseas in high-profile raids and the targeting of high-value targets.

The FBI is the lead agency for what insiders call the "no-fail, 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-per-year response capability." In 1999, the Bureau was assigned the responsibility for the render safe mission, a euphemism for extraordinary and highly classified actions that are slated to take place in cases of a lost, stolen, or hidden nuclear or radiological weapon. The FBI had already been given primary responsibility for domestic counterterrorism, including quasi-military action against armed groups inside the United States. President Bill Clinton approved new rules that assigned "national response" to the FBI (it had previously resided in the Defense Department). The FBI would form the dedicated rapid response force, and technical response assets from various departments would be seconded to this so-called National Mission Force, operating under a National Asset Commander, an FBI officer appointed by and reporting to the Attorney General and ultimately the White House…

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-secret-commandos-shoot-kill-authority-were-capitol-1661330

>>17884532

Exclusive: Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at the Capitol

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In April 2005, the FBI consolidated its various extraordinary response teams under the National Asset Response Unit (NARU), responsible for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The dedicated rapid response force, ready to deploy anywhere in the United States within two hours of notification, reached operational readiness during the Obama administration, with dedicated national response elements from the Department of Energy and augmentation from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.

The overlap of counterterrorism and WMD forged this extraordinary force, operating under Top Secret and compartmentalized presidential directives. The National Mission Force, however, also had to plan for other crisis response contingencies, such as hostage rescue and continuity of government. Those latter functions could also fall under the operational control of the Secret Service (an element of the Department of Homeland Security) or to military commanders who were operating in response to immediate emergencies.

Most of the literature mistakenly says that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)—including, famously, the units formerly known as Delta Force and SEAL Team 6—is the primary national mission force. Although overseas, the National Mission Force often operates as a Joint Special Operations Task Force (with FBI augmentation), made up of dedicated teams assigned to JSOC, inside the United States, the FBI is in charge.

On the morning of January 6, most of these forces staged closer to downtown Washington, particularly after intelligence was received indicating a possible threat to FBI headquarters building or the FBI's Washington Field Office. FBI tactical teams arrived on Capitol Hill early in the day to assist in the collection of evidence at sites—including the Republican and Democratic party national headquarters—where explosive devices were found. FBI SWAT teams and snipers were deployed to secure nearby congressional office buildings. Other FBI agents provided selective security around the U.S. Capitol and protection to congressional members and staff.

A tactical team of the Hostage Rescue Team was one of the first external federal agencies to actually enter the Capitol after protestors breached the building. In addition to augmentation of emergency security assets, one team coordinated with the U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service to provide additional safeguarding of Vice President Pence, who had been moved to the underground parking structure beneath the Capitol, from where he was supposed to evacuate. But Pence refused to leave the building and stayed underground instead.

The presence of these extraordinary forces under the control of the Attorney General—and mostly operating under contingency plans that Congress and the U.S. Capitol Police were not privy to—added an additional layer of highly armed responders. The role that the military played in this highly classified operation is still unknown, though FBI sources tell Newsweek that military operators seconded to the FBI, and those on alert as part of the National Mission Force, were present in the metropolitan area. The lingering question is: What was it that the Justice Department saw that provoked it to see January 6 as an extraordinary event, something that the other agencies evidently missed.

capitol-riot-donald-trump-fbi-january-6.jpg

Exclusive: Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at Capitol

newsweek.com

Secret commandos, authorized to shoot to kill, were at the Capitol. FBI and ATF law enforcement confront supporters of President Donald Trump as they protested inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Jeffrey Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. Here, Rosen removes his face mask as he speaks at the Justice Department on October 21, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)

>>17884535

A tactical team of the Hostage Rescue Team was one of the first external federal agencies to actually enter the Capitol after protestors breached the building. In addition to augmentation of emergency security assets, one team coordinated with the U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service to provide additional safeguarding of Vice President Pence

Darren Beattie said on Bannon’s war room, that this article just disappeared and it wasnt mentioned again. He asked why didn’t they continue to find the “pipe bomber”? So these special forces were there when people entered the Capitol when it was breached? If it was “so violent”, why didn’t they stop it?

>>17884581

Oh from the protesters? None, not one, it was so dangerous…oh no!

>>17884619

She did die, here’s the sauce ano, God Bless her patriotic soul

Kirstie Alley, ‘Cheers’ and ‘Veronica’s Closet’ star, dead at 71

By Dan Heching, Amy Simonson and Taylor Romine, CNN

Updated 1:42 AM EST, Tue December 6, 2022

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/entertainment/kirstie-alley-obit/index.html

>>17884646

Dark=realistic