An undated draft letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) instructs its partners to “pause and review” all grants and programs related to combating domestic violent extremism.
The unsent information bulletin, obtained by the news outlet Wired, was addressed to FEMA’s state and tribal nation points of contact, effectively taking the agency, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security, altogether out of the business of preventing violent attacks.
Some of the government-funded programs may be repurposed and continue to receive funding, the bulletin read, but those specifically dedicated to “identification or prevention” of violent extremism will be ineligible for any funding from FEMA.
This is only one in a series of dangerous policy changes, leadership appointments, and funding cuts the White House has enacted to hollow out the United States’ national security infrastructure when it comes to preventing and combating domestic extremism.
Far from the only recent change impacting FEMA’s programs, on August 5 employees received emails indicating they were being redirected toward another agency’s efforts—in this case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), also under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
More than half of FEMA’s Human Resources department and 50 people from its security team have been temporarily reassigned for 90 days to aid ICE in vetting and processing new candidates. Part of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” ICE will attempt to hire on 10,000 new agents.
This move comes just as hurricane season begins, a time when FEMA normally hires locals to aid in disaster relief efforts. The same vetting and processing that ICE is demanding now will be required in the wake of a major disaster.
Prevention is off the Menu
In the early days of Trump’s second term, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s (GPAHE) Global Extremist Symbols Database, the largest available with nearly 1,000 symbols from around the world, disappeared from the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL). The library, run by FEMA, was filled with information critical to government officials at the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels, as well as the US military.
GPAHE’s symbols database, which is free of charge to all, is used by law enforcement at the local, national and international levels and by tech platforms to identify extremist groups, individuals associated with these groups, and symbols used as tattoos.
FEMA is not the only Department of Homeland Security (DHS) branch to be targeted for cuts by the administration. In February, over 400 probationary DHS employees were fired.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer. Today’s Department of Homeland Security personnel action will result in roughly $50 million in savings for American taxpayers and incalculable value toward accountability and cutting red tape,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.
One of the branches hit by the cuts was the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3). The office had managed a series of programs that attempted to help communities and law enforcement identify and intervene with individuals at risk of carrying out violent action.
This is the same Center, including its $18 million grant program, that 22-year-old Thomas Fugate was appointed to lead, despite his lack of qualifications or relevant experience.
Approximately 20 percent of the CP3’s staff were cut in March, about eight positions that had been there for less than a year. The Center’s director, William Braniff, resigned alongside them. In July, he posted to LinkedIn that “another round” of reassignments had left CP3 only about five staff members in the department, down from the original 40 prior to the layoffs.
In the current environment, even America’s national policing agency is not safe from cuts and retaliation. Both former Acting Director Brian Driscoll and Steven J. Jensen, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Washington field office, were ousted in early August 2025. Jensen played a key role in the FBI’s response to the Capitol riots, while Driscoll initially refused to turn over the names of 6,000 agents who worked on the January 6 cases.
Trump infamously used his first day in office to pardon approximately 1,500 people for their role in the insurrection at the Capitol, including known white supremacists and violent militia members. Many of those pardoned also came with previous criminal records unrelated to January 6, including rape, manslaughter, domestic violence, and drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, for those remaining inside the FBI, investigators and resources are being pulled off of right-wing domestic extremism tracking and investigations and put to work focusing on street gangs, border enforcement, and supposed left-wing radicals. Additionally, the Department of Defense, under Pete Hegseth, is jettisoning its efforts to address extremists within the ranks of one of the most powerful armed forces in the world. In February, the Pentagon Inspector General canceled a plan to investigate whether current military training is prepared to identify and counter extremism, according to a memo, saying the project does not align with Trump’s executive orders. A February 25 directive officially halted an ongoing assessment of how military branches implement counterextremism training, particularly efforts targeting white nationalist groups and militias.
Turning Off the Tap: Funding Cuts
One of the most significant moves by the Trump administration hampering domestic extremism efforts that have already been shown to save lives has been the cessation of federal programs designed to help frontline workers and communities identify extremism.
When an armed man in Colleyville, Texas, entered a synagogue during Shabbat service, demanding the release of an al-Qaeda-affiliated prisoner, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker managed to take action that led to the hostages escaping. Cytron-Walker credited the security and active-shooter training he received for saving their lives.
Other programs include a special unit of the Boston Children’s Hospital set up specifically to treat young patients showing signs of violent behavior.
Despite these successes, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) took an axe to tens of millions of dollars previously dedicated to violence prevention. Likewise, studies measuring the frequency of attacks have also been gutted, largely leaving states in charge of developing and funding programs from the ground up.
The Department of Justice canceled over $180 million in grants in spring 2025, which 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 with the CCJ, a total loss of about $500 million.
The grants provided federal support for violence reduction, policing and prosecution, victims’ services, juvenile justice and child protection, substance use and mental health treatment, corrections and reentry, justice system enhancements, research and evaluation, and other state- and local-level public safety functions.
“The terminated funding was largely appropriated or authorized by Congress for specific programs or purpose areas. OJP administers these funds in alignment with the needs of the field and, to the extent possible, evidence-based and promising practices,” CCJ wrote in their report.
The canceled awards were determined not to align with the administration’s priorities, according to an email sent by acting head of the Office of Justice Programs, Maureen Henneberg, that was obtained by The Washington Post.
The DOJ’s team of lawyers dedicated to domestic extremism has likewise been slowly bled dry. Previously consisting of nine lawyers and support personnel, one of the former staff members, Thomas Brzozowski, revealed to the SpyTalk podcast in August that members had been given unrelated case work, reassigned completely, or left the department over the past seven months.
The White House has also moved further to make sure that new funding and projects across the government are ideologically in line with the administration. On August 7, an executive order titled “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking” accuses past governments of “propagating absurd ideologies” and promoting “anti-American values.” To remedy the problem, a “senior appointee” will be added to every federal agency ensuring that all grants “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.”
The order also places a 30-day freeze on grants while they are received by the respective agency. Those grants found to not be in line with “agency priorities” may be terminated.
The drive to cut government spending on domestic extremism issues was a clear and early priority of the Trump administration. The White House and broader GOP have signaled a complete disregard for the importance of countering domestic extremism, specifically far-right extremism, despite it being repeatedly designated as a prevailing threat by most law enforcement agencies.
With a renewed focus on securing the southern border and highly visible and frightening raids being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on American streets, little mind is being paid to investigating threats to the nation’s security, so much so that FBI director Kash Patel has been diverting FBI agents away from counterterrorism and counterintelligence toward immigration efforts.
Foxes in the Hen House
On top of these devastating cuts and reassignments, there has been no shortage of questionable political appointments made by the White House to manage national security.
This list includes FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
Both men have uncomfortably close relationships with conspiracy theories, as Patel has used slogans related to and spoken positively about the QAnon movement, and Bongino rose to prominence as a content creator steeped in election denial and COVID-19 misinformation.
Patel is leading the charge against the Bureau’s own agents, including those involved in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the attempt to stop the ratification of the 2020 election, which culminated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol building.
Few appointments are as worrisome as Joe Kent, who was put forward to lead the National Counterterrorism Center in February 2025.
Kent, a special forces combat veteran and failed two-time Republican congressional candidate, will now lead the “counterterrorism and counternarcotics enterprise” and serve as the principal counterterrorism advisor to Trump.
Charged with pushing forward the administration’s new approach to terrorism, one that has been expanded to include narcotics cartels, Kent has connections to several white nationalists and a history of espousing conspiracy theories. This includes during his confirmation hearing, where Kent repeated a claim that the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol building was at least in part planned by the FBI. On multiple occasions, he denied the result of the 2020 election and discussed his plan to impeach then-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Joe Kent’s personal account asking about federal agents or informants who were present during the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol building. (Source: x.com)
During his 2022 campaign for Congress, Kent paid a member of the white supremacist Proud Boys, Graham Jorgensen, for consulting work. He also appeared at a rally with Joey Gibson, the founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer, and has attracted support from a variety of far-right figures.
He also had his lawyer contact a publication threatening to sue if they did not alter a story where they claimed he had responded in support of a proposed 20-year moratorium on immigration, agreeing with a question asker that there was a “demographic replacement” taking place in the US. The publication responded by releasing an audio recording of the interaction.
Kent was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 52 to 44 at the end of July.
