Morning Briefing: DHS and FBI Have Already Scaled Back Monitoring Domestic Violent Extremism

The DHS and FBI have already 'scaled back efforts over the past two years to disrupt violent extremists’ online activities,' and have 'largely stopped flagging networks of white supremacist.'

Jan 09, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security seal outside the agency's headquarters in Washington, DC. (Image: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg)

Morning Briefing: While the Trump Administration is likely to dramatically reduce or eliminate efforts to monitor and disrupt domestic violent extremism (DVE), federal agencies have already reduced efforts to combat networks of far right extremists and White Supremacists online.

Current and former officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS) have reportedly claimed that the federal agencies “have scaled back efforts over the past two years to disrupt violent extremists’ online activities,” and the agencies have “largely stopped flagging networks of white supremacist accounts that try to recruit or radicalize new followers.”

A former Biden Administration official recently warned that “there could be further domestic attacks by individuals with current or past military ties if the Pentagon fails to take the threat seriously,” and that there needs to be a deeper “understanding about how some military veterans struggling with the return to civilian life become susceptible to extremist ideologies of all kinds.”

Blood and Honour, an international coalition of neo-Nazi White Supremacists gangs, has reportedly become the “first extreme right-wing group to have financial sanctions imposed by the UK government,” and is accused of involvement in "terrorist activities through promoting and encouraging terrorism, seeking to recruit people for that purpose and making funds available for the purposes of its terrorist activities.”

In Beverly, Massachusetts, Matthew Scouras was arrested and charged for “allegedly threatened to rape Jewish women and encouraged others online to shoot people outside of synagogues,” and local law enforcement reportedly searched his home and found items including a “Nazi flag, a 9mm Glock ‘ghost gun’ with no serial number, boxes of ammunition, three large-capacity rifle magazines.”

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Spencer Sunshine writes that the highest-profile arrests of far right activists “have been related to the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Around 300 new people were charged in 2024 (out of a grand total of 1,600); half of these were for ‘assaulting or impeding law enforcement.’ Those sentenced include Taylor Johnatakis, who received seven years, and Proud Boy Marc Bru, who got five. Not forgetting his followers, Trump has promised to pardon some or all of these prisoners. Every day Trump makes more wild claims about what he intends to do. Regardless of what happens, these prisoners are red meat to his base, who see them as ‘political prisoners’ who were arrested for trying to correct an injustice. Pardons for the leaders of violent groups, such as the Proud Boys’ Tarrio, will undoubtedly result in their groups’ revival. It will also signal Trump’s approval of street violence, potentially reviving the mass street brawls with antifascists during Trump’s first term, such as those seen in Portland, Oregon. As far-right grass roots remain mobilized, the next four years will likely be an environment where individuals and groups can be fully activated and function as Trump’s foot soldiers—legally or otherwise.” [The New Republic]
Jason Wilson writes that “the man in control of the Utah-based rightwing militia Oath Keepers USA, a recent spinoff of the national organization first established by Stewart Rhodes in 2009, is a former Las Vegas metropolitan police department (LVMPD) homicide detective who left the force in acrimony after advocating ‘race war.’ The revelations about Robert ‘Bobby’ Kinch, now of Duck Creek, Utah, come from public records, online materials and the work of a longtime infiltrator of the patriot movement in the Pacific north-west, who provided vital evidence to the Guardian captured inside Kinch’s home. The findings show that four years on from January 6, the Oath Keepers, who played a central role in fomenting that day’s insurrection in Washington, have not disappeared but have continued quietly adding law-enforcement officers to their ranks. The return of Donald Trump to the presidency may encourage the likes of Kinch to bring their movement back into the spotlight, as the incoming administration promises to carry out unprecedented mass deportation of immigrants and to take on Trump’s perceived opponents, whom he has described as ‘the enemy within’.” [The Guardian]
Christopher Mathias writes that “a far-right publishing house that publishes the works of historical and contemporary fascists is hosting a ‘Coronation Ball’ at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., to celebrate Donald Trump’s second inauguration, featuring a guest list that’s a veritable who’s-who of MAGA influencers and so-called New Right luminaries. Passage Press will throw the confab in the Watergate Hotel’s Moretti Ballroom on the evening of Jan. 19, the night before Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president of the U.S., according to an events page on the publishing house’s website. That the event’s title refers to Trump’s inauguration as a ‘coronation’ — a word typically reserved for the crowning of kings and queens in monarchies — underscores the anti-democratic, authoritarian nature of the black-tie soiree… One of Passage Press’ biggest authors is Dark Enlightenment figurehead Curtis Yarvin. The former Silicon Valley programmer blogged for years under the pen name ‘Mencius Moldbug’ before emerging as a kind of court philosopher for reactionary tech billionaires and prominent MAGA movers and shakers (including Vice President-elect JD Vance).” [Huffington Post]