The board, called the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” was created in September 2023 to provide DHS with “expert” analysis on subjects such as terrorism and fentanyl trafficking. The panel included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, all of whom signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop and suggesting its release was a Russian disinformation ploy.
Internal documents obtained by AFL show the board characterizing “supporters of the former president” as constituting “most of the Domestic Terrorism threat” in the United States. The documents also classified traits such as having served “in the military” and being “religious” as “indicators of extremists and terrorism,” citing unnamed research.
Military personnel are less likely to be supporters of radical political causes than other Americans, according to a 2023 RAND Corporation study. Nevertheless, suspicions of extremism in the military were popular among Democrats in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, as 15 Democrat lawmakers signed a letter in 2021 urging Inspector General Sean O’Donnell to “take action on this wave of violent extremism” in the military.
AFL on Thursday released the first collection of documents that detailed the committee’s desire to increase information collection on Americans, including getting “mothers” and “teachers” to report on children suspected of extremism under the pretext of “public health.” The committee cited the model of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign after 9/11, which was an initiative by the DHS to encourage American citizens to report potential terror threats.
The DHS panel was shut down following a lawsuit from AFL in conjunction with former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. The lawsuit alleged the group violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which governs how federal advisory committees can legally operate.
“These inflammatory records reveal the interworkings of the illegal partisan committee that we proudly stopped,” AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “All Americans should be alarmed about the contents of these records. All efforts to weaponize the federal government against political opponents of the ruling regime should be stopped.” (RELATED: ‘Utter Failure’: Fmr Acting DHS Secy Says Dept Has ‘No Idea’ How Many Terrorists Among Millions of ‘Gotaways’)
The DHS did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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