FBI Now Targeting Trump Supporters Ahead of 2024 Election - Report
The FBI is now targeting supporters of former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election, a new report claims.
A person described as a “current FBI official” who said they did not want to speak on the record told Newsweek in a jarring report that was published on Wednesday the bureau is quietly working to profile conservatives.
Newsweek reported:
“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.”
At the heart of the FBI’s apparent concern is an event most of the country has moved on from — minus the corporate media and many Democrats: The Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion.
“The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” the bureau source told Newsweek.
The person added that the people behind the profiling of conservatives are well aware that focusing on so-called “MAGA” voters comes with what the outlet called “the risk of provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter.”
The source added, “Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully.”
More than a dozen additional federal government employees were asked about the targeted campaign, Newsweek claimed.
Most of them preferred not to comment, the outlet reported.
It is unclear what the reported plan to target Trump supporters might entail.
The FBI issued a comment to Newsweek for the story that did not directly dispute the claims of one of its own.
“The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence,” the bureau said in a statement.
The statement added:
“Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities.
“We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.”
The U.S. Justice Department has faced scrutiny for throwing the book at people who were at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but did not go inside the building or who were not accused of engaging in any violent actions.
Meanwhile, the department has mostly dismissed the deadly riots of 2020 that were perpetrated almost entirely by leftist political activists.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended his agency’s handling of the riots in relation to the incursion at the Capitol.
However, federal Judge Trevor McFadden of the District Court for the District of Columbia previously called out federal officials for their fixation on Jan. 6 in comparison to political violence in dozens of major U.S. cities.
“I think the U.S. Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was evenhanded in its concern about riots and mobs in this city,” McFadden said last October, Politico reported.
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