Biden DHS Panel Focused on Perceived Terror Threat from Pro-Trump, Religious Americans, Meeting Notes Show

A now-shuttered intelligence expert panel convened by the Department of Homeland Security focused its domestic-terrorism prevention discussions on supporters of former president Donald Trump, religious Americans, and members of the military community, according to a tranche of newly released internal documents.

The short-lived Homeland Security Intelligence Experts Group, a DHS panel that included signatories of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, spent a considerable amount of time deliberating on how the intelligence community can better combat domestic terrorism, especially among demographics typically associated with the political Right, documents obtained by the conservative America First Legal show.

The panel held an all-day meeting on September 28, 2023, to talk through a range of subjects, such as domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism, according to the meeting notes. While a significant portion of the discussion covers basic intelligence strategies, the intelligence panel also deliberated on who is committing acts of domestic terrorism and how to create a nationwide messaging campaign to raise awareness of the threat from those quarters specifically.

“We see people who go off the rails. We need people to say something. We need a nationwide campaign to push it to the locals,” one note reads in a section about implementing the Biden administration’s domestic-terrorism strategy. “To get a mother or teacher to come forward, it needs to be a public health catcher’s mitt.”

According to the meeting notes, the intelligence officials discussed constitutional limitations on collecting intelligence and certain events they believe could lead to violence, such as the criminal indictments of Donald Trump.

“If you ask researchers to dive into indicators of extremists and terrorism, they might indicate being in the military or religious. This being identified as an indicator suggests we should be more worried about these. We need the space to talk about it honestly,” a note taken later in the meeting reads. 

“It seems that most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president,” another note adds, referring to Trump. “It is not like you want a political advantage, but people have attacked the government and its institutions for the last six years.”

A study commissioned in 2021 by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to assess the extent of extremism within the armed services found no evidence that the military harbors a disproportionate number of political radicals. Conducted by a team of researchers from the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), the study found “fewer than 100 substantiated cases per year of extremist activity by members of the military in recent years.”

The study was commissioned in response to growing concerns about domestic extremism in the wake of the Capitol riot. Austin called January 6 a “wake-up call” on the extent of right-wing extremism in the military, while then-Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN the problem was “vexing.” “Many of these people,” Kirby added, “work very hard to conceal their beliefs. We can’t be the thought police.”

However, the report found that “of the more than 700 federal cases in which charges were publicly available a year after these events, fewer than ten” were serving in the military at the time of the riot.

Despite the lack of statistical grounding, the DHS panel members argued in the meeting that the White House should take on a more active role in spreading the word about the disproportionate threat of domestic terrorism coming from certain corners of society typically associated with political conservatism, like religious and military communities. 

“The President seems an ineffective messenger, particularly with who his opponent is,” a note says, referring to President Joe Biden, 81, whose age is jeopardizing his political future.

“The White House has not gone on the offense and stated that this is wrong,” says another bullet point. 

To drive home the point about political violence being wrong, the intelligence group planned on working with a bipartisan group of people and victims of terrorism to spread the message and lower the temperature of the issue.

An amendment proposed by Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) to limit the intelligence capabilities of the DHS office of intelligence and analysis was a major concern for the intelligence panel. They discussed the possibility of meeting with Rubio and his staff to address his concerns, and they tried to figure out where his support lies and what his vulnerabilities are.

“The right has done well with the emotional aspect. This is an emotional issue,” the intelligence group noted.

The only mention of the riots, threats, and attacks that have become a fixture of progressive activist movements was one note briefly mentioning the assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Two of the panel’s members, former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, signed the infamous letter from 51 intelligence officials in October 2020 casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Both testified last year and defended the letter’s contents, blaming the media and then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden for supposedly misinterpreting the letter’s claims.

The Hunter Biden letter and the Russiagate scandal dramatically reduced conservative favorability towards U.S. intelligence agencies, which many on the right now believe oppose Trump and the GOP at large. Conservative skepticism of intelligence agencies extends to their ability to coordinate with nonprofits and social-media platforms on restricting certain forms of online speech. 

America First Legal obtained the documents from litigation against the DHS that resulted in the intelligence group being disbanded earlier this year because of its partisan imbalance. The group shared snippets from the documents on six occasions over the past couple of weeks. DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

“The American people need to read these records and our exposé of the Biden Administration’s efforts to further weaponize the government to achieve their objectives,” said AFL executive Director Gene Hamilton.

“This ‘committee,’ stacked with the Administration’s allies, was formed in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and we were proud to have stopped its activities.”