Documents newly obtained by the Media Research Center reveal that the Biden administration has given out tens of millions of dollars through a taxpayer-funded anti-terrorism grant program to be deployed not against terrorists, but instead against conservative organizations, Christians, and the Republican Party.
That’s right – Joe Biden’s government, like Barack Obama’s government, is weaponizing the agencies of the federal bureaucracy and spending taxpayer dollars to target its political opponents.
It’s an abject violation of constitutional rights, it’s illegal, and it’s got to stop.
Under Obama, it was the Internal Revenue Service that violated American citizens’ rights to free speech and freedom of assembly, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that targeted one political opponent in particular – Donald Trump. Under Biden, it’s the Department of Homeland Security targeting the administration’s political opponents.
The documents – obtained through MRC Free Speech America’s new Freedom of Information Act investigations – reveal that the “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program” has been revamped under the Biden administration. Shifting its focus from preventing actual violence and terrorism, the grant program now is being used to train attention on the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through what it calls “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other similar “training seminars.”
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – who called the program a “high priority” in an internal memo – awarded a total of 80 grants at a cost of almost $40 million. The smallest grant was for $85,000, while the largest was for $1.19 million. The median grant was roughly $442,000.
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The documents show that one grantee in particular – the University of Dayton PREVENTS-OH – was exceedingly radical. The university’s DHS grant of $352,109 was used to establish the PREVENTS-OH program, which said it would “draw on the expertise of the University of Dayton faculty” to counter “domestic violence extremism and hate movements.”
Included in the grant application were footnotes with links to academic conferences where one presenter – University of Cincinnati Research Fellow Michael Loadenthal – presented a chart named the “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization.”
“Among the organizations and movements displayed on the pyramid were the Republican Party, the Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, Fox News, Breitbart News, the National Rifle Association, PragerUniversity, Tea Party Patriots, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement, and the Christian Broadcasting Network,” reported FOX News. “The pyramid also included hate groups like The Base, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group, and the Daily Stormer, a pro-Nazi publication, seemingly comparing them to mainstream organizations such as the GOP.”
And just who is Michael Loadenthal of the University of Cincinnati? He identified himself as an “ally” of the radical Antifa organization. Loadenthal’s Twitter feed contains numerous posts celebrating acts of left-wing extremism, including violence (often against police officers). At least one of his tweets promoted a poster equating the MAGA movement to Nazi soldiers.
Loadenthal explained the finer points of creating dummy accounts on free speech social media platforms like Telegram, Gab, and Rumble so he could “destabilize” political movements he opposed. “A lot of things we’re doing are illegal,” he bragged. “A lot of it involves breaking the law.”
The documents show that another presenter at one of the conferences, Alexander Hinton of Rutgers University, compared the Trump administration to the Cambodian communist Khmer Rouge, headed by dictator Pol Pot, who murdered 2 million of his nation’s 7 million citizens.
Another speaker, Nicole Widdersheim, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, “compared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposing a volunteer civilian military force to assist the National Guard in emergencies such as hurricanes to the Nazis’ Holocaust during World War II.”
Frankly, the documents obtained by MRC show that the entire operation is illegal and involves breaking the law – specifically, 18 USC Section 241, which makes it a federal crime “if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, of District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
When Obama learned of the IRS targeting of conservative Tea Party organizations – of which mine was the largest – he feigned outrage. He called the targeting “intolerable and inexcusable” and directed the Treasury Secretary “to hold those responsible for these failures accountable.”
No IRS official was ever prosecuted for the violations of our constitutional rights. That failure to prosecute sent a signal to other leftists in the bureaucracy – conservatives were still fair game, and negative consequences for violating their rights would be minimal. Have at it.
Today, we learn that they did have at it. In fact, under President Biden, the targeting has become more severe, and it’s been directed at a much larger group. Loadenthal’s pyramid does not just go after conservatives; by including the Republican Party, he is implying everyone who did not vote for Biden is on a path to become a Nazi and/or a domestic terrorist. This garbage was paid for with our tax dollars. This is what we would have expected in the Soviet Union.
Biden is not the great uniter. He is a divider who empowers his administration to disregard the rule of law and attack those who did not vote for him.
I don’t want another round of crocodile tears from Democrat leaders whose only real sorrow might come from the fact that their allies were caught. A serious signal needs to be sent to those who would wrongly use government against political opponents.
Actions must have consequences. The consequences this time must be severe and meaningful. We must defund the Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and impeach President Joe Biden.
Jenny Beth is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
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