A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory board said that being religious, having served in the military, or supporting former president Donald Trump are all markers of domestic extremists, according to documents obtained by America First Legal.
The legal nonprofit obtained documents from the since-disbanded Homeland Intelligence Experts Group through litigation and released the latest tranche of documents on Friday. America First Legal in conjunction with former ambassador Ric Grenell sued DHS over the board, which had included members such as former CIA director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Brennan and Clapper publicly pushed Russian collusion hoax conspiracies against Trump, and both former national security officials in October 2020 denied the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop, attributing it to likely Russian disinformation.
Notes from the defunct board say that researchers have identified “being in the military or religious” as a marker of domestic extremists. Trump supporters compose “most of the Domestic Terrorism threat,” the board suggested.
“If you ask researchers to dive into indicators of extremists and terrorism, they might indicate being in the military or religious. This being identified as an indicator suggests we should be more worried about these. We need the space to talk about it honestly,” notes from the board said.
“There is a political backdrop to all of this,” the notes said. “It seems that most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president. It is not like you want a political advantage, but people have attacked the government and its institutions for the last six years.”
America First Legal released the notes as part of its “#DeepStateDiaries” series on documents obtained from the Biden administration that reveal information about its inner workings. The legal nonprofit made its first release in the series on Thursday.
Gene Hamilton, executive director of American First Legal, called the revelations evidence of “unabashed partisanship” at Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ DHS and an effort to use the powers of the federal government against political opponents.
“These shocking records reveal apparent unabashed partisanship on this Deep State committee,” Hamilton told Fox News. “All efforts to weaponize the federal government against political opponents of the ruling regime should be stopped. We look forward to exposing more records in the coming days.”
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News that the White House does not consider Americans who identify as religious, served in the military, or support Trump to be a significant threat to the United States.