Hillary Clinton’s recent comments come on the heels of a Newsweek piece explaining that the FBI has created a new category of domestic terrorism for Trump supporters. 

From Fox News. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a “formal deprogramming” for many supporters of former President Trump during a new CNN interview. …

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“That’s the way it used to be,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday. “I mean, we had very strong partisans in both parties in the past, and we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things… but there wasn’t this little tail of extremism, waving, you know, wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today. And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure. He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him?”

Clinton continued, “Because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.” …

“Maybe they don’t like migrants, maybe they don’t like gay people, or Black people, or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn’t get, whatever the reason,” Clinton continued.

“So it is like a cult and somebody has to break that momentum. And that’s why I believe Joe Biden will defeat them and hopefully then that will be the end and the fever will break. And then Republicans can try to get back to fighting about issues among themselves and electing people who are least, you know, responsible and accountable,” she added. …

From Newsweek. The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump‘s army of MAGA followers.

The challenge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the primary federal agency charged with law enforcement, is to pursue and prevent what it calls domestic terrorism without direct reference to political parties or affiliations—even though the vast majority of its current “anti-government” investigations are of Trump supporters, according to classified data obtained by Newsweek.

“The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” says a current FBI official, who requested anonymity to discuss highly sensitive internal matters. The official said that the FBI is intent on stopping domestic terrorism and any repeat of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But the Bureau must also preserve the Constitutional right of all Americans to campaign, speak freely and protest the government. By focusing on former president Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, the official said, the Bureau runs the risk of provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter. …

Newsweek spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism. Most requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.

Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether “terrorism” is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions. …

What the FBI Data Shows

From the president down, the Biden administration has presented Trump and MAGA as an existential threat to American democracy and talked up the risk of domestic terrorism and violence associated with the 2024 election campaign.

“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country,” President Biden tweeted last September, the first time that he explicitly singled out the former president. …

Though the FBI’s data shows a dip in the number of investigations since the slew of January 6 cases ended, FBI Director Christopher Wray still says that the breach of the Capitol building was “not an isolated event” and the threat is “not going away anytime soon.” In a joint report to Congress this June, the Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security say that “Threats from…DVEs [domestic violent extremists] have increased in the last two years, and any further increases in threats likely will correspond to potential flashpoints, such as high-profile elections and campaigns or contentious current events.” …

The threats listed in that paragraph are all clearly associated with America’s right and in particular with Trump’s MAGA supporters. Right after January 6, the FBI co-authored a restricted report (“Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach, Elevated Domestic Terrorism Threat of Violence Likely Amid Political Transitions and Beyond”) in which it shifted the definition of AGAAVE (“anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism”) from “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” For the first time, such groups could be so labeled because of their politics.

It was a subtle change, little noticed, but a gigantic departure for the Bureau. Trump and his army of supporters were acknowledged as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists, even as the FBI was saying publicly that political views were never part of its criteria to investigate or prevent domestic terrorism. …

But the FBI went further in October 2022 when it created a new subcategory — “AGAAVE-Other” — of those who were a threat but do not fit into its anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen groups. Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as “domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.”

Though Trump and MAGA are never mentioned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.

“What other name could we use?” asks one FBI officer who spoke with Newsweek, and who defends what he says is merely a record-keeping change in response to Congressional pressure to track things better. “Obviously if Democratic Party supporters resort to violence, it [AGAAVE-Other] would apply to them as well. It doesn’t matter that there is a low likelihood of that. So yes, in practical terms, it refers to MAGA, though the carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan.” …

The revelations that some Trump supporters are being specifically targeted by the FBI fits with accusations from among them that the Bureau has them in its sights and is the political tool of a repressive deep state in Washington, D.C., bent on preserving the hold of the political establishment at the cost of democracy. …

The FBI and the other intelligence agencies responsible for domestic matters track the number of terrorist-related disruptions, arrests and investigations, based on its caseloads and its various characterizations. According to the FBI, the number of domestic terrorism-related open cases grew by 357 percent from 1,981 in fiscal year 2013 to 9,049 in fiscal year 2021, a number that has been widely quoted in the media as evidence of a widespread domestic terror threat. The FBI also says the number of FBI domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism investigations has more than doubled since the spring of 2020 — to approximately 2,700 investigations at the end of fiscal year 2022, another marker that’s been widely quoted.

Classified numbers seen by Newsweek substantiate the FBI public claims while also showing that a significant part of the increases in 2020 and 2021 were related to protests after the murder of George Floyd and during COVID as well the elections and January 6. That said, the data show clearly that the main targets of the investigations and cases open were of Trump supporters. While the number of investigations in 2021 almost doubled from 2020 to around 9,000, the number of “full investigations” that led to arrests was only 1,446, not much more than the number of 1,146 January 6 protesters who have been charged with a crime, according to the Justice Department. …

The data from the FBI shows a significant decline in the number of investigations and cases opened in the past year, in 2022, below 2020 levels — including a drop in the number of anti-government and anti-authority extremists (AGAAVEs) as a result of the closure of so many January 6-related cases.

And, according to FBI data obtained by Newsweek, 31 percent of its investigations now relate to AGAAVEs and 60 percent of all investigations include cases categorized as AGAAVE and “civil unrest” — marking a significant shift away from investigations associated with race-related causes or armed militias. Drilling further into the individual cases behind the numbers, nearly two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations are focused on Trump supporters and others suspected of violating what the FBI calls “anti-riot” laws. …

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(Excerpt from Newsweek. Photo Credit: Natilyn Photography on Unsplash)