White supremacists in the United States represent the “most persistent and lethal threat” of violent domestic extremists while China and Russia pose serious foreign concerns, according to a new study by the Department of Homeland Security.
“Ideologically motivated lone offenders and small groups pose the most likely terrorist threat to the Homeland, with Domestic Violent Extremists presenting the most persistent and lethal threat,” acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf wrote in the department’s first-ever annual Homeland Threat Assessment, obtained late Monday by CBS News. “I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years.”
White supremacist extremists killed more than 35 people in attacks on the public in 2018 and 2019, three times more than the number of people killed by homegrown violent extremists, a separate category from white supremacists, and all other domestic violent extremist attacks those years, according to DHS data.
Wolf said lone wolf attackers and small groups have taken advantage of political tensions and social unrest in 2020. Domestic extremists are most likely to continue using vehicles, edged weapons such as knives or machetes, arson, and rudimentary explosive devices in attacks. But chemical, biological, and radiological items may also be used.
Campaign offices, polling places, and voter registration events are the “most likely flashpoint for potential violence.” The period following the November election, when presidential election results may not be known for weeks to months, is expected to be a turbulent time because domestic extremists may increasingly carry out attacks amid the election chaos, the report states.
Federal officials are also increasingly worried about anti-government extremists.
“Anti-government and/or anti-authority violent extremists are likely to be emboldened by a perceived success exploiting otherwise peaceful protest movements and concealing violent tactics,” the report states. “These violent extremists are increasingly taking advantage of large protest crowds to conduct violence against government officials, facilities, and counter-protestors.”
The annual report’s release this week comes a month after former acting undersecretary for the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis Brian Murphy accused Wolf and acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Director Ken Cuccinelli of ordering intelligence officials to modify internal reports so that they back up President Trump’s claims identifying far-left threats, not white supremacists, as a major problem. Murphy made the allegation weeks after he was removed from his senior post at DHS.
Wolf, during a speech at department headquarters in Washington last month, skirted the debate over whether left-wing extremists or white supremacists are the greatest domestic terrorist threat.
In September 2019, then-acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan rolled out a counterterrorism strategy that solidified violent white supremacists as the leading domestic security threat. Under the strategy, DHS would release an annual assessment that looks at the state of terrorism and targeted attacks nationwide. An initial leaked draft of the 2020 update, which emerged in early September, maintained that white supremacists represent the biggest national security threat to the public, outpacing that of the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and foreign fighters. However, two subsequent drafts describe white supremacy in language that does not paint it as the gravest problem.
In recent years, religious facilities, including churches, mosques, and synagogues, have been targeted by extremists who carried out mass shootings. Following deadly attacks at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and in the streets of Dayton, Ohio, in August 2019, Trump condemned “racist hate.” The White House announced in late September plans to declare the Ku Klux Klan and antifa terror organizations, though no legal means exist to classify domestic groups as such.
The report identified China and Russia as the most likely countries to interfere in U.S. affairs. China poses a “high cyber espionage threat,” while Russia is attempting to interfere in the upcoming election to “sway U.S. voter perceptions.” Beijing has tracked U.S. medical supply shortages and could attempt to use those to its advantage by making the U.S. more dependent on its exports despite the White House’s opposition to relying on China for coronavirus-related supplies.
