Posted on 05/07/2025 6:47:55 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Biden administration authorized federal law enforcement four years ago to target Americans engaged in "concerning non-criminal behavior" in the name of fighting domestic terrorism, with a specific eye on those serving in the military, owning firearms, or spreading what officials considered to be "xenophobic" disinformation, according to newly declassified documents.
The stunning breadth of the mandate was disclosed when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently released a fully unredacted version of the prior administration’s "Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism."
The June 2021 memo exposed for the first time the law enforcement and intelligence framework that led the FBI to monitor and probe conservative Catholics and parents who protested against some school board policies and justified Homeland Security to engage in censorship or debanking of Americans the administration considered to be potential enemies of the state.
The directives provided to the Justice Department and FBI by the National Security Council, which developed the memo, said the agencies should “drive…executive and legislative action” to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, rein in “ghost guns,” monitor active-duty service members for possible terrorism recruitment and "mitigate xenophobia and bias."
You can read the full memo here.
File DIG-Declassified-Strategic-Implementation-Plan-for-CT-April2025.pdf Weaponizing law enforcement against its own citizens For decades, FBI agents have been required to meet stringent requirements for opening criminal and national security investigations known as a "predicate." The predicate for a full investigation required "an articulable factual basis" that "reasonably indicates" a crime or national security threat has or is about to occur, according to the Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations.
You can read that document here.
File AG DIOG Guidelines.pdf
Legal experts and lawmakers told Just the News on Tuesday they were deeply concerned the Biden-era memo substantially lowered the standard to "concerning" behavior instead of criminality, potentially jeopardizing civil liberties and giving license to weaponize police powers against Americans who had different views than the governing administration on issues like the Second Amendment and COVID-19.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a member of the House Judiciary Committee who played a critical role identifying FBI abuses in the now-discredited Russia collusion probe, said the memo amounted to "merely a broad brush to start spying on Americans."
"It doesn't have to be criminal, for sure. But it doesn't have to be heterodox," Biggs told the Just the News, No Noise television show. "It just has to be something that some agent, or some local agent, says, 'Oh, we got a beef about this. We're going to check it out.'"
He added: "It's spying on Americans, violating the Fourth Amendment."
Biggs called on new FBI Director Kash Patel to immediately ensure all current FBI agents no longer adhere to the Biden guidance. "If there's no predicate, but you're investigating, then people need to be let go and fired," he urged.
Dr. John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former Justice Department official, said the memo's mandate on probing “non-criminal behavior” was particularly concerning.
“Well, back in June 2021 the Biden administration put out its plan for dealing with domestic terrorists. The one that they put out at that time talked about how they were going after criminal activity. And of course, everybody, anybody who's espousing violence or trying to or committing violence, one wants the government to get a handle on that,” Lott told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Tuesday.
“What Tulsi Gabbard declassified was the rest of the document that was there, and what was shocking to me is that the types of tools and responses that they have been making for people who are engaged in some type of violence actually applied to non-violent individuals, non-criminal activity that was there,” Lott said.
Misinterpreting iconography, phrases in common American use For example, the memo directed intelligence and law enforcement agencies to incorporate “domestic terrorism iconography, symbology, and phraseology” in its counterterrorism toolbox, images that are often used in a benign manner by many Americans.
An earlier, leaked internal FBI memo showed the bureau paid special attention to symbols made prominent during the American Revolution. These included the Gadsden Flag, and America's first national flag, depicting 13 stars and stripes, designed by Betsy Ross, as examples of iconography used by militia violent extremists. The memo also identified pro-second amendment messages as possible indicators of domestic terrorism.
Lott says the inclusion of common conservative images without a left-wing equivalent is problematic, and suggests it could be an indicator of bias.
“[When] you go and you look at something like the symbolism that they're looking for, right, the 2A, somebody writing something like the right to keep and bear arms, the Betsy Ross flag, the Gadsden flag. Everything that you can find there seems to be something that would be associated with conservatives,” Lott said. “I don't see anything in there that's associated with people on the left. There's nothing about, like, a Black Lives Matter, or something like that that somebody might say might be, you know, an equivalent thing there that they should be concerned about.”
The long-term goals of the strategy also identify areas important to combating domestic extremism that clearly overlap with key Democratic Party priorities, including calls for increased gun control measures, centering “hate crimes” in law enforcement and “increasing faith in democracy and government.”
The memo directed the Biden Domestic Policy Council to “drive…executive and legislative action” to ban assault weapons, ban high-capacity magazines, rein in “ghost guns,” and encourage states to adopt red-flag laws, in order to eliminate the “means for perpetrating acts of domestic terrorism.”
The memo also used another term favored by liberals in their attacks on conservatives — "xenophobic" — suggesting the FBI be used to stamp out disinformation as well as bias in COVID-19 responses.
Law enforcement should "mitigate xenophobia and bias, including by advancing inclusion in the nation's COVID-19 response," the memo directed, putting the White House Domestic Policy Council as the lead. The memo also tasked officials with fully implementing the 2021 COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which among other directives, created a grant system for states to create “hate crime reporting hotlines.”
Biden targeted disinformation as domestic terrorism Additionally, the memo shows the administration directly linked the spread of disinformation to the growing prevalence of domestic terrorism. The memo directs agencies across the federal government to increase information sharing in order to improve the government’s “understanding of how foreign state and non-state information operations, particularly disinformation, relate to the domestic terrorism threat.”
It also tasked agencies to “collaborate on addressing terrorist content online with partner governments similarly committed to freedom of expression.”
The memo also included directives for government agencies to work closely with foreign governments to obtain intelligence information on possible domestic terrorism and combat disinformation.
The Biden administration tasked the State Department, FBI, Justice Department, and CIA to “increase the priority of obtaining from foreign partners foreign intelligence and information related to U.S.-based violent extremism, overseas violent extremism and actors, and potential connections among them.”
In order to combat online disinformation, the administration directed agencies, including Homeland Security, the State Department and USAID, to implement “digital literacy” programming designed to combat domestic terrorism recruitment. This included diverting funding to research its effectiveness and working with local partners.
The State Department, which was involved in the effort to counter disinformation, has previously come under scrutiny from conservatives concerned with the actions of its now-shuttered Global Engagement Center, which funded nongovernmental organizations that widely targeted, tagged, and labeled conservative content producers and media sites as “foreign agents.”
Signs of bias in the federal bureaucracy, particularly the FBI, had been appearing for years before the memo memorialized the strategies. That bias is borne out by the history of making misleading statements and pushing a left-wing narrative on Americans.
For example, the FBI for years was misleading the American public for years by obscuring key facts surrounding Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson's armed assault against Republican congressmen at a baseball practice in 2017. The bureau insisted for years the shooter was motivated to commit “suicide by cop,” despite evidence pointing towards a left-wing political motivation. The FBI quietly reversed its determination in 2021, but did not explain its reasoning.
Pro-life protestors are not the ones acting violently The strategy memo, which placed a major focus on countering domestic extremism in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, gave the FBI a high-visibility justification for their controversial decisions to target conservatives for suspected domestic extremism during the Biden administration.
Several FBI whistleblowers said that the strategies originally designed to target genuine extremists were instead turned against pro-life protestors, parents vocalizing concerns about their children’s school curriculum at school board meetings, and those expressing traditional Catholic viewpoints.
One whistleblower, agent Garrett O’Boyle, testified that the bureau issued guidance in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade to investigate pro-life groups for threats against the Supreme Court, even though, at the time, it was pro-choice groups that were protesting — sometimes disturbingly — outside conservative justices’ and their families' homes.
O’Boyle said he was tasked with talking to a pro-life informant "about the threats to the Supreme Court,” much to his bewilderment.
"I was like, why would this person know about those threats? He's pro-life. Like, he's not the one going and threatening the Supreme Court Justices,” O’Boyle said.
In the now-infamous "Catholic Memo," the FBI detailed plans to develop a source network in conservative and traditional Catholicism, and splinter Catholic Churches over fears that they served as a nexus for the development of extremist ideology. A separate whistleblower provided evidence to Congress that FBI counterterrorism assets were involved in the investigation of parents protesting school policies.
He added: “It’s spying on Americans, violating the Fourth Amendment.”
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There will be no consequences or accountability. There never are.
These are blatantly unlawful orders and anyone who followed them should be charged. Which includes 90% of the FBI. Our DoJ is worse than worthless. They continue their promotion of lawless behavior no matter how many drug dealers they bust.
bkmk
“”In the now-infamous “Catholic Memo,” the FBI detailed plans to develop a source network in conservative and traditional Catholicism, and splinter Catholic Churches over fears that they served as a nexus for the development of extremist ideology. “”
Had to get through the entire article to find any reference to Catholicism - VERY END OF THE ARTICLE - and connection to what the title of the thread means by including the words - “before Catholics”....
Any idea?
Not in this lifetime, anyways.
There will be investigations, reports, and plenty of promises and rhetoric but no real punitive actions. Our system is just not into the messy business of accountability. Its much easier to just talk about it until it fades.
The ‘before’ is in reference to the sequence of events.
The Biden memo came first, then the Catholics and Parents protesting at school board meetings were targeted.
IOW, BIDEN SICCED THE DOGS ON THEM..........................
We would rather have lawlessness, dysfunction and lies than enforce any semblance of accountability. /sarc
Consequences ?
This means they could investigate ANYONE who is against mass migration of illegals. Period. Which means they could check your banking status, employment, relationships, or any other thing they can hold you on, including how many weapons you possess. Police State.
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Bla, bla, bla. Angry conservatives junk seeking retribution. Bla, bla, bla.
Pendulum only swings one way. MSM rules, as always. Democrats/liberals/progressives enforce the law. Conservatives seek retribution.
In the disturbing, now-infamous “Catholic Memo,”
<><>Biden’s FBI detailed plans for a “source network”
<><>scrutinizing conservative, traditional, and splinter Catholic Churches
<><>Biden apparently instigated fears wrt possible religious extremism.
<><>A second whistleblower provided more Biden FBI counterterrorism efforts
<><>to marshall assets into investigating parents protesting school policies.
Thank you....If the title had included “AND” - Catholics AND Parents - it would have cleared up any confusion...at least my confusion. Confusion is the name of the game anymore in my life!! LOL
Biden administration party members made Xi much proud and made party a new member of the world order.
Nothing will happen over this but it’s proof that the Democrat leadership has no regard for the laws of this land and is an existential danger to America. Just be glad they didn’t win, Trump has saved us from disaster, for now.
Fourth amendment?
Try first amendment!
It is a deliberate infringement on people’s freedom of religion.
A war on people of faith is completely in in the face defiant of the separation of church and state.
If the memo violated a law and the ones who wrote and signed same (we know the PedoPres did not sign anything) are not jailed there is no rule of law in America. Go after the staff.
Midterms are becoming meaningless.
This has Jill’s fingerprints all over it...............
Mr Biden, did you authorize this with your signature? JB, I don’t remember when I was president.
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