WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records from the Department of Justice’s National Security Division regarding its newly-created “Domestic Terrorism Unit.”
On January 11, 2022, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, saying, “The threat of posed by domestic terrorism is on the rise” and so he has “decided to establish a Domestic Terrorism Unit to augment our existing approach.”
However, the Unit’s focus is not what you might expect. It is not, for example, Islamic terrorists attacking a Texas synagogue. Rather, in the same vein as the Attorney General’s October 4 Memorandum targeting American parents and the Biden Administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism targeting free speech, the Domestic Terrorism Unit will focus its energy on American citizens who question or object to the Biden Administration’s policies and priorities.
AFL’s sources suggest that Biden Administration appointees and ideologically allied career officials have singled out political conservatives, such as Christian evangelicals, pro-family groups, border security advocates, and pro-life activists, for heightened scrutiny, and that such citizens are understood “by everyone involved” to be the Domestic Terrorism Unit’s targets.
AFL will continue to fight against all of the Biden Administration’s works to silence the American people.
Statement From America First Legal Senior Counselor Reed Rubinstein:
“The Domestic Terrorism Unit is one more data point in a deeply disturbing pattern of evidence that the Biden Administration has politicized the Justice Department, the FBI, and the federal security state. To justify this new threat to civil liberties, the Assistant Attorney General claimed “we’ve seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.” However, as President Biden recently made clear during his speech in Georgia, anyone who disagrees or dissents from his demands or objects to his policies wears a target on their back. The Left objected when communists working to overthrow the United States and Islamists advocating terrorism against Jews and Christians here at home and overseas were objects of federal concern. Ironically, although not surprising, now that the left has taken power, it is the loyal, law-abiding, and patriotic Americans – political conservatives, Christian evangelicals, pro-family groups, border security advocates, pro-life activists, and others – who are singled out and targeted for surveillance, intimidation, and suppression,” Rubinstein said.
Read the FOIA here.
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