Open Season: How the Trump Administration has Left Americans Exposed to Far-Right Violence

Key Takeaways

• The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the federal counterterrorism infrastructure that protected Americans from far-right violence. Across DOJ, FBI, DHS, DOD, and other agencies, the administration has gutted staffing, canceled grant funding, and shut down key programs, leaving vulnerable communities without critical protections or support. The administration has also sought to rehabilitate and empower far-right extremists while dismantling protections against them.
• The administration has placed multiple individuals with ties to extremist groups and ideologies in high-level government positions to oversee counterterrorism. Sebastian Gorka, who is serving as Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council, has connections to Hungarian Nazi-collaborating organizations and far-right media. The administration also includes figures like Kash Patel, Darren Beattie, and Kingsley Wilson, who all have a documented history of extremist statements or connections to extremists and conspiracy theories.
• The administration is weaponizing counterterrorism tools against political opponents rather than actual threats. NSPM-7 represents a fundamental perversion of counterterrorism infrastructure, turning tools built to protect Americans into instruments of political targeting.
• Real-world consequences are already materializing. Multiple far-right attacks in the past year and a half show that the threat has not subsided and will continue to cause devastating violence across the country.

From one administration to the next, certain things are expected to change within the federal government. Priorities vary, and government staff shift their work based on those priorities, usually a rather gradual process.

Not so with the second Trump administration, which has slashed and burned its way through the federal government. So too when it comes to America’s national security apparatus, where Trump has instituted monumental, cataclysmic changes that are weaponizing the system against his opponents and leaving the American public more vulnerable to far-right violence, which for years now has been the predominant terrorist threat according to the FBI and other government agencies. Here, GPAHE chronicles the dismantling of the government’s efforts to combat far-right violence.

Whitewashing the Far-Right Threat

Under the first Trump administration, the federal government reinvigorated its efforts to combat domestic terrorism following multiple deadly events, including the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the 2019 racially motivated Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas, among others.

In a June 2019 congressional hearing on violent white supremacy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged in a written statement that white supremacists “have been responsible for the most lethal incidents among domestic terrorists in recent years.” Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discussed the threat in its September 2019 “Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence,” which spends over half of its domestic terrorism section discussing the threat from violent white supremacy.

These efforts subsequently led the FBI to conduct multiple large domestic terrorism investigations into militant white supremacist groups like The Base and Atomwaffen Division. These investigations disrupted and prevented multiple attacks on houses of worship, targeted murders and assassinations, and other racially motivated mass casualty attacks.

Of course, that was a different time, when a very different Trump administration was often moderated by traditional conservative appointees, who came to be referred to as the “adults in the room.” When Trump took office last year, it was a new ballgame. The administration is now stuffed to the brim with loyalists towing Trump’s historical revisionist line that the white supremacists and militiamen who stormed the Capitol were “patriots,” a key aspect of Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. These appointees have now moved to dismantle the federal government’s previous work on preventing racially motivated domestic terrorism.

On his first day in office, Trump pardoned the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and commuted the sentences of the 14 members of the Oath Keepers militia and white supremacist Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges. Since then, the administration has been on a seemingly endless campaign to rewrite history and expose “the truth” about January 6th. They’ve added a page to the official White House website to expose the “truth,” deleted press releases about the arrests and convictions of January 6th rioters, and even pushed for a $1.8 billion slush fund to potentially funnel money into the rioters’ pockets (the fund has been put on hold pending a judge’s ruling).

According to a recent article from The Lawfare Institute, at least 97 pardon or clemency recipients from January 6 have been arrested, charged, and/or convicted of other crimes, including child sexual exploitation, grand larceny, and assault, since their pardons.

Dismantling the Apparatus

These pardons were just the beginning. Officials in the Trump administration have not only sought to whitewash the far-right threat, but they have also methodically moved through the federal government to dismantle the programs that were set up to counter racially motivated violent extremism.

Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Both the DOJ and the FBI have extensively overhauled their efforts to combat far-right extremism. This is not surprising, given that the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, has his own extremist past. Patel has previously spoken positively about the QAnon movement and has been a consistent apologist for January 6th rioters. GPAHE reported extensively on Patel’s far-right ties when he was first nominated for FBI director.

Patel and other Trump administration appointees wasted no time in exacting revenge on the divisions and personnel they believed unfairly targeted their friends and allies. In January 2025, the Trump administration demanded the FBI provide the names of up to 6,000 of its agents who pursued January 6 attackers, something the acting directors had refused to provide until finally relenting in early February last year.

In March 2025, the FBI scaled back its staffing and tracking of domestic terrorism probes, with 16 agents and intelligence analysts being transferred out of the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section (DTOS). The FBI also halted tagging investigations related to domestic terrorism. The “tagging system” allows the agency to identify key trends, count the number of incidents, and direct resources based on caseloads.

In late August 2025, senior counsel for the DOJ’s domestic terrorism unit, Thomas Brzozowski, resigned, citing the gutting of his office’s budget and reassignment of his staff to other matters. In a podcast interview with SpyTalk, Brzozowski stated, “I no longer had a functioning job. There was nothing for me to do anymore. …I couldn’t in good conscience continue to hold myself out as counsel for domestic terrorism when it became evident to me that this was simply not going to be something that I would be permitted to work on.”

Also in August 2025, Former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, who served in the position from the beginning of Trump’s second term to Patel’s confirmation, and Steven J. Jensen, the head of the FBI’s Washington field office, were ousted. Jensen played a key role in the FBI’s response to the Capitol riots, while Driscoll initially refused to turn over the names of agents who worked on the January 6 cases.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

DHS has not fared much better. During DOGE’s rampage through the federal government, the agency dismantled the DHS Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, also known as CP3. Approximately 20 percent of the CP3’s staff were cut in March 2025, including about eight positions that had been there for less than a year. To fill the spot vacated by seasoned terrorism and violence prevention expert William Braniff, who resigned in solidarity with his former employees, Trump Administration officials replaced him with then-22-year-old Thomas Fugate, a former Trump campaign advance team employee and Heritage Foundation intern with no experience in counterterrorism or violence prevention.

DHS also removed GPAHE’s Global Extremist Symbols Database from its Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL). GPAHE’s symbols database is one of the largest available, with nearly 1,000 symbols from around the world, and is free of charge. The database is used by tech platforms and law enforcement at the local, national, and international levels to identify extremist activity, extremist groups, and individuals associated with these groups.

Also in March, the Department of Homeland Security announced nearly 100 more job cuts, including some in DHS’ Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL). Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) released a statement on the cuts to DHS’ CRCL, writing that the office was created by Congress to ensure that DHS “upholds the Constitution and laws that protect everyone in the country.” The office had significant oversight authorities over DHS’ work on domestic terrorism.

Then, in July 2025, DHS announced plans to shed 75 percent of staff in its Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), which was the primary method for state and local law enforcement to receive intelligence information on threats, including domestic terrorism. Notably, I&A, along with CP3, were the two primary pieces of DHS that researched, funded, and produced intelligence for state and local law enforcement relating to domestic terrorism.

Outcry from stakeholders, including multiple Jewish advocacy groups, a slew of state and local law enforcement associations, and Democratic members of Congress, halted the major staff cuts. Instead, DHS’ I&A opted to offer voluntary resignation packages and early retirement to nearly all its employees. These offers were provided to the same employees who were told in the weeks prior that they would likely be fired at some point soon. This allowed the agency to shed additional staff members without more pushback from advocacy groups.

These staff cuts were worrying, but not as much as when DHS started posting far-right dog whistles and references in its official social media pages. GPAHE has reported on these posts and noted that some included references to white supremacist songs and imagery. These posts indicate that DHS is not just ignoring the far-right threat; they are actively promoting it.

Department of Defense (DOD)

The Department of Defense has ended most of its efforts to stop extremism within its ranks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was himself the subject of insider threat concerns from his fellow servicemembers, said in his confirmation hearing that “Extremism in the military was a made-up bogeyman to begin with.”

In February 2025, the Pentagon inspector general scrapped plans to investigate the military’s training for identifying and countering extremism in the ranks, saying the project does not align with Trump’s executive orders. The memo — bizarrely – connected this decision to the larger push by Hegseth to eliminate programs, policies, and content such as photos and social media posts that discuss or recognize women and troops with minority backgrounds. The directive abruptly halted an ongoing assessment of how military branches implement counter-extremism training, particularly efforts targeting white nationalist groups and militias such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Extremism in the military has been a long-recognized problem, with several former members of the military committing devastating terrorist attacks, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 2025 Bourbon Street vehicle ramming. One academic study determined that military service was the strongest predictor that an individual would attempt and successfully carry out a mass casualty attack.

It appears DOD has not only taken a passive approach to extremism, but they’re also now actively hiring extremists for sensitive positions. In early June, the Pentagon hired Elias Irizarry, a January 6th rioter, for a sensitive counterterrorism position within the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office. Irizarry is assigned to the office’s irregular warfare and counterterrorism section, which focuses on rescue and extraction missions overseas.

When asked why Irizarry, who is very young with little professional experience, was hired for the role, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said that he is “a qualified, patriotic young professional, and we are proud to have him as a political appointee.” Last year, it was discovered that Kingsley Wilson, deputy press secretary at DOD, had a long history of antisemitism and promoting the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Wilson is still employed by DOD, despite her former comments.

Other Federal Government Agency Cuts

Multiple other departments and organizations in the executive branch were the subject of staffing cuts or a major shift in their priorities and work.

The State Department oversaw foreign aid programs that countered radicalization abroad through its Office of Countering Violent Extremism. Most of the office’s staff were cut in July 2025, and two former employees of the office confirmed to GPAHE that the office itself was closed. Since then, the State Department has actively promoted the far-right concept of remigration, an idea cooked up by an Austrian former neo-Nazi that proposes the ethnic cleansing of traditionally white countries of non-white immigrants, refugees, and even citizens. Again, this is unsurprising considering the appointment of individuals like Darren Beattie, who has appeared at white nationalist conferences, and Sam Samson, who met with members of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right extremist party in Germany that has embraced the concept of remigration.

At the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), previous work to track and combat the transnational far-right threat has seemingly been abandoned. In December, Joe Kent, then director of NCTC, testified before Congress and described in detail NCTC’s efforts to combat cartels and individuals motivated by foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS. There was no mention of the transnational far-right threat in his testimony.

Federal Grants and Funding for Terrorism Research and Prevention

The damage to the efforts to combat domestic terrorism did not stop with government agencies. Significant federal grant dollars that went toward counterterrorism research and prevention were slashed because the programs were determined by the administration to be “unnecessary” and “wasteful.”

The administration cut nearly $3 million in funding to the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). START’s primary project was a large national database that tracks domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and school shootings. The administration wrote in an email that the program “no longer effectuates Department priorities.”

The DOJ canceled more than $180 million in grants in spring 2025 that covered gun-violence prevention and victim advocacy programs. That same month, according to the Council of Criminal Justice (CCJ), the DOJ terminated 373 grants from its Office of Justice Programs (OJP).

Affecting 37 red and blue states, the defunded grants were valued at about $820 million but included many multiyear grants in various stages of implementation, a total loss of about $500 million. The canceled awards were determined not to align with the administration’s priorities, according to an email sent by the acting head of the Office of Justice Programs, Maureen Henneberg.

The administration also froze funds to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The program provides critical funding for physical security and security enhancements to nonprofit organizations that are at “high risk” of a terrorist attack. Commonly, these grants provide funding for physical security to protect houses of worship due to the high frequency of attacks against these locations.

This program has demonstrated successes, including stopping an armed man in Colleyville, Texas, who entered a synagogue during Shabbat service in January 2022, demanding the release of an al-Qaeda-affiliated prisoner. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker credited the security and active-shooter training he received because of the grants for saving their lives.

The funds have since been unfrozen, but many organizations have had to seek external funding opportunities because of new restrictions placed on the grants by DHS. The terms and conditions for the FY2025 grants included provisions that recipients cannot “operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA or discriminatory equity ideology” or “operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration” while receiving grant funding. These provisions force many organizations, including houses of worship, to unfairly choose between serving their communities as they see fit and their physical safety.

The grant program also faces other political threats. Just this week, Trump threatened to withhold these grants from states if they do not implement stringent “election security” changes. These include phasing out certain electronic voting systems, moving to hand-marked paper ballots, and running their voter rolls through DHS’ citizenship verification database.

These cuts severely weakened the ability of the federal government to track, respond to, and prevent domestic terrorism and mass casualty violence in the United States. It also left many vulnerable communities who could be targeted without the support of the federal government for their protection and security.

All these changes severely hampered efforts to protect the public from far-right violence, but in September 2025, things took a turn for the much worse.

An Opportunity

On September 10, 2025, far-right activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking on a college campus in Utah. For individuals who work on terrorism and targeted violence incidents, this attack followed a familiar pattern of growing political violence.

Earlier the same year, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was the target of an arson attack, Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated, and Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were shot by Hortman’s assassin. Just the year before, Trump was the target of two separate assassination attempts. Political violence incidents like these were something that counterterrorism officials had warned about for months, despite their overall weakened capacity to report on threats.

For the Trump administration, Kirk’s death presented an opportunity to enact policies that Trump had fantasized about since his first term, and that would allow him to target his political opponents. In the weeks after Kirk’s killing, the administration rushed to release the National Security Presidential Memo (NSPM) 7, and an executive order designating “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization, despite the fact that there is no formal mechanism to designate domestic terrorist organizations or a chargeable federal offense of “domestic terrorism.”

Published on September 25, NSPM-7 attributes Kirk’s killing, attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and facilities, the killing of the CEO of United Healthcare, and the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to coordinated, organized campaigns orchestrated by far-left groups, rather than the reality that the individuals in these instances likely acted alone, with no coordination from a broader movement or group.

The memo attributes all this violence to “anti-fascist” ideology and directs the FBI, through its Joint Terrorism Task Force, to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt “anti-fascist networks” by any means, including targeting them both criminally and financially. The memo also claims that “common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a movement sharing a broad philosophy rooted in the opposition to fascism and the far right. Unlike far-right terrorist groups, antifascists are generally not connected to mass deaths, though they have engaged in property destruction and, at times, conflict with law enforcement. However, there is no one organization of anti-fascists. Generally, antifascists are individuals who share a philosophy, not an organization. The goal of the presidential memo appears to be to demonize anyone on the left as dangerous and anti-American.

In March 2026, the FBI submitted its FY2027 budget request to Congress, something most agencies do annually. However, this request was much different than previous years and focused heavily on funding directives from NSPM-7. The domestic terrorism section of the request stated that violence committed by domestic terrorists is commonly associated with the same “anti-American, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” beliefs listed in NSPM-7.

These claims are factually untrue. Both the FBI and DHS have repeatedly cited what they refer to as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism” as the most prominent and deadliest domestic terrorism threat facing the U.S. According to data provided to the GAO by DHS, there were 231 domestic terrorism incidents between 2010 and 2021. Of these, about 35 percent, the largest of any single ideology, were classified as racially or ethnically motivated. These attacks were also the most lethal, killing 94 people and injuring 111 others during the same period. Many of these attacks targeted people of color, Jewish people, Muslims, and immigrant communities.

The administration is not just making moves to implement NSPM-7 at home; the State Department is pressuring foreign allies to target far-left groups within their own countries. Monica A. Jacobsen, a top State Department counterterrorism official, called on her counterparts from Europe, Canada, and Australia earlier this year to join the push against far-left groups, saying how the focus on jihadist groups had “narrowed how governments understood terrorism” and that “far-left political violence” was a serious threat that required more cooperation from Western governments.

The State Department was also trying to bring officials from other countries together in May and July to “teach them” about the dangers of far-left violence. There has been no reporting to indicate if a May meeting ever actually happened. In early June, the State Department held a “Symposium on the Rise of Far-Left Political Terrorism,” where the invitation made clear the goal was to “ensure [the Department of State is] moving forward with one voice on this critical issue.” As of now, Hungary is seemingly the only country to follow the Trump administration’s lead and designate “antifa” as a terrorist organization, but that happened under Prime Minister and Trump ally Viktor Orbán, who was thrown out of office in April. Other efforts throughout the European Union failed.

Enter Sebastian Gorka

One of the key, leading figures in these efforts at the National Security Council is Sebastian Gorka, a man so extreme that he only lasted seven months in the first Trump administration before being forced out. Gorka has long been seen as a loud, eccentric figure whose counterterrorism expertise is shaky at best. In a 2017 CNN article, Stephen Sloan, a professor of political science who advised Gorka on his dissertation, said, “I would not call him an expert on terrorism.” He added that Gorka is “knowledgeable” about terrorism matters, but “his level of expertise does not match the level where he stands in the White House.” Sloan said this when Gorka was only an advisor to the president; now his job is even more consequential.

Gorka has significant ties to extremism and the global far right. Prior to the 2016 presidential election, Gorka had written opinion pieces for the far-right media outlet Breitbart, then led by Steve Bannon, who touted it as the publication of the “alt-right,” as the outlet’s national security editor. Gorka’s articles were primarily Islamophobic, but he also wrote articles that excused the threat from the far right and white supremacists. In one interview, Gorka downplayed the significance of the Oklahoma City bombing, saying that people should focus on the “hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Middle East by jihadis,” because, at the time of the interview, the bombing had occurred 20 years prior.

Abroad, Gorka has connections to multiple Hungarian extremist movements, including the Historical Vitézi Rend (Order of Chivalry), which is a 1990s reemergence of a group that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. GPAHE reported extensively on Gorka’s extremist ties when it was first announced he would join the second Trump administration.

Gorka’s official title is “Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the White House National Security Council.” The role is sometimes colloquially called the “Counterterrorism Czar,” referring to the immense power the role has in shaping federal counterterrorism policy and activities across the government. This position is also in charge of setting strategy for the administration’s counterterrorism efforts and often produces documents outlining that strategy for the public. Typically, these documents are made in consultation with the multitude of agencies that hold counterterrorism responsibilities.

Gorka spent much of his first year and a half in this administration stating that the counterterrorism strategy’s release was imminent, but months went by without a public release of the strategy. In May, the strategy was finally released.

Trump’s Counterterrorism “Strategy”   

The strategy document, a total of 16 pages, is riddled with typos and praise for Trump’s leadership in the national security sphere. The document claims that the Biden administration weaponized the Intelligence Community (IC) against conservatives. The strategy makes no mention of far-right extremism or white supremacy, even though it has consistently remained the most frequent and deadly terrorism threat in the United States.

The document mentions “Biden” seven separate times. Notably, that is five more times than it mentions the Houthis in Yemen, six times more than it mentions Hamas, a militant Palestinian group that conducted the October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel, and seven more times than it mentions right-wing extremism, which it does not mention at all.

The strategy claims that the IC previously ignored “real threats” and allowed far-left violence to continue unimpeded. The document references the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School and the killing of Charlie Kirk as examples of far-left terrorism committed by individuals who “espoused extreme transgender ideologies.”

While the motivations of Kirk’s accused killer remain somewhat cloudy, there is a much clearer picture of the Annunciation shooter’s motivation. Robin Westman left behind extensive video and written journals that show an individual who was deeply entrenched in online communities that glorify mass shooters and violence. Westman’s weapons included references to multiple previous far-right terrorists, including Anders Breivik, Brenton Tarrant, and Peyton Gendron. Westman also referenced multiple slurs targeting different groups and racist sayings.

Failure After Failure

Gutting the people, programs, and funding meant to keep Americans safe was always going to have consequences. What follows is a small accounting of some of these, each one a direct result of choices this administration has made:

1. There is no coherent strategy for countering domestic terrorism.

The U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy, along with NSPM-7, provides no actual basis for countering any form of domestic terrorism. You can compare these “strategies” directly to the Biden Administration’s 2021 “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” which adopted some GPAHE recommendations. Biden’s strategy document, which only focused on one small piece of federal counterterrorism efforts, was 32 pages. It introduced the current threat landscape and used actual assessments produced by both the DHS and FBI, as opposed to cherry-picking threats based on ideological preferences.

Strategies also generally discuss methods for combating threats. Biden’s strategy offered four guiding pillars for the work, with subsections to discuss how the pillars should be implemented across the government. Trump’s strategy offers no method to achieve its goals. The document contains a lot of “we will not allow” statements, but no guiding principles or methods for how they will achieve these objectives.

2. The Trump administration is ignoring the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat, as defined by U.S. intelligence agencies, far-right extremism.

Far-right extremists have long been cited as the most violent and prominent threat facing the United States. In the same early June 2026 symposium hosted by the State Department mentioned earlier, Gorka made a surprise appearance as a speaker. According to attendees, Gorka cited a September report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which discussed a rise in “left-wing terrorism,” as proof that the administration’s efforts to counter the threat are necessary.

The report’s findings didn’t exactly line up with Gorka’s assessment. The report says that left-wing attacks are “remarkably less lethal overall than jihadist or right-wing attacks,” and that any decline in right-wing attacks is “probably temporary.” The document also includes a graph that shows the far-left plots and attacks peaked at eight in one year, while the far-right plots and attacks peaked at 33 in one year. According to the same graphs, far-right plots and attacks have frequently exceeded 20 per year for the past ten years.

In May, two teenagers, who appear to have been radicalized in far-right communities online, attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people and injuring another. The pair left behind livestreamed footage of their murder-suicide and a 75-page manifesto full of hateful content, including Islamophobic, antisemitic, and xenophobic rhetoric.

On the same day in September when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a teenager in Colorado opened fire in his school, injuring two of his fellow students. He was heavily involved in online extremist subcultures, where he posted everything from antisemitic conspiracy theories to True Crime Community (TCC)-related content.

The administration is also ignoring the threat of violence from far-right antigovernment extremists like those from January 6th who Trump pardoned and released from prison at the beginning of his term. Earlier in June 2026, the FBI announced that they had disrupted a plot to attack Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 fight at the White House. Preliminary investigations reveal that some in the group of plotters believed that the attack would help tear down the “corrupt” U.S. government. What the FBI failed to acknowledge in their announcement is that they seemingly had no knowledge or insight into this massive plot until four days prior to the event, when the mother of one plotter called local authorities to warn them about her son’s suspicious behavior.

3. The Trump administration is violating federal law and has failed to report data on domestic terrorism.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is an annually passed federal law that specifies the budget, expenditures, and policies of the Department of Defense. In late 2019, the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY 2020) included a provision governing efforts against domestic terrorism. The bill outlined a requirement mandating that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the consultation of the director of National Intelligence, jointly produce two reports; one that creates uniform definitions of terms related to terrorism and methodologies for tracking domestic terrorist incidents and another that serves as a strategic report and assessment on the state of domestic terrorism from FY 2017 – FY 2019.

The initial report, called the “Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism,” was published in May 2021 and included data and assessments covering FY 2015 – FY 2019. The NDAA also required that annual updates should be published during the 5-year period after the initial report’s release, meaning that there should be annual updates for FY 2020 – FY 2024.

The first annual update was published in October 2022, covering FY 2020 and FY 2021. The last annual update was released in June 2023, covering FY 2022. The reports for FY 2023, which should have been submitted sometime in 2024, and FY 2024, which should have been submitted sometime last year, have yet to be publicly released, and there is no evidence they were ever submitted to the appropriate committees.

Public release of these documents is also required by the bill text (subsection (e)) specifying that they must be posted publicly to the websites of the FBI, DHS, and NCTC no later than 30 days after the reports were provided to relevant congressional committees. The documents are also required to be posted in a format that is fully indexed and searchable. Even if these reports were submitted to the proper committees, they were never publicly released, meaning that these entities remain out of compliance with federal law.

There’s no way to know why these reports have not been produced, but it is likely that data would not fall in line with the Trump administration’s claims about the rising threat from the “far left.”

Permanent Damage

Most experts agree that it will take years to rebuild the institutional knowledge lost during the first year and a half of Trump’s administration when it comes to battling domestic terrorism. As a result, the public, and especially targeted communities, are left vulnerable to such violence, and our national security is damaged. Some of the knowledge may never return, as many counterterrorism experts left lower-paying government jobs for more lucrative careers in the private sector or retired altogether. Some former federal employees are simply so traumatized from the abuse they’ve suffered over the last 17 months that they have no desire to return to federal service even after the current administration leaves. Rebuilding a counterterrorism apparatus based on facts and not ideological preferences may take years, and the Trump administration will be at least partly responsible for those who will inevitably become victims of domestic terrorist attacks from the far right.