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The Justice Department has instructed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to crack down on supposed “domestic terrorist” organizations, the definition of which includes those who promote “radical gender ideology.” Part of that crackdown involves the establishment of a cash reward system for providing information on leaders of so-called “domestic terrorist organizations.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum to federal prosecutors and law enforcement agencies on December 4, in accordance with NSPM-7, President Donald Trump’s September directive ordering the investigation of “domestic terrorist” organizations. At the time, NSPM-7 did not come with any enforcement mechanisms; Bondi’s memo provides specific instructions to prosecutors and law enforcement agencies.
The Bondi memo was leaked on December 8, and on Tuesday, LGBTQ Nation first reported on the fact that the memo includes “radical gender ideology” as part of its definition of “domestic terrorism.” In additional to “radical gender ideology,” the memo also defines potential domestic terrorist ideologies as “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders… anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity… hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality,” and more. Under the Trump administration, “radical gender ideology” has been used as a catchall phrase to encompass issues related to trans and nonbinary communities.
The memo encourages prosecutors to “be particularly mindful of the potential applicability” of charges such as “picketing or parading with intent to obstruct the administration of justice,” “obstruction during civil disorders,” and “providing material support for terrorist activity.” In other words, the memo encourages prosecutors to press charges against certain forms of protest, or for providing supposed aid to organizations that promote what the government is now defining as “terrorist activity.”
The material support statute, in particular, has been used to significantly hinder the work of humanitarian groups, and has been widely criticized for prohibiting free speech. According to the ACLU, material support is defined as any “service,” “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” or “personnel” — an incredibly vague definition that has been used to surveil people and groups without basis since the implementation of the Patriot Act in 2001. Contemporarily, Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU’s national security project, wrote about the worrying implications of NSPM-7 on the ACLU’s website in October, stating, “If anyone needed proof that ‘terrorism’ and ‘political violence’ are slippery and fraught categories subject to political, ideological, and racial manipulation and bias — well, this is it.”
The Bondi memo also specifically instructs federal law enforcement agencies to “review their files and holdings for Antifa and Antifa-related intelligence,” and deliver those materials to the FBI within 14 days of its issuance. The FBI is also set to “compile a list of groups of entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” within 30 days of issuance. The FBI will also “disseminate an intelligence bulletin on Antifa and Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremist groups,” including information on “structures, funding sources, and tactics.” Lastly, the memo directs the FBI to better publicize its domestic terrorism tip line, and will “establish a cash reward system for information that leads to the successful identification and arrest of individuals in the leadership of domestic terrorist organizations.”
The language contained in the Bondi memo is reminiscent of that found in a September report from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. In the report, two anonymous national security experts claimed that the FBI intended to categorize trans people as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists,” a threat category that was created earlier this year. The FBI defines “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” as “criminal conduct… in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos.” This also ties neatly into the ongoing right-wing attempts to scapegoat trans people for mass shootings and other forms of gun violence, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Notably, all of the federal government’s messaging about “domestic terrorism” ignores the fact that the vast majority of research points to the fact that the bulk of domestic terrorists in the U.S. are aligned with the right-wing.
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