Trump DOJ Files 9/11-Era Charges Against Leftists Across the Country

Under Trump, the DOJ has changed how it brings terrorism cases, and is training them on the opposition.

Across the country, federal prosecutors are upgrading what would have been routine prosecutions into terrorism cases when they involve people President Trump has cast as his political enemies.

It represents a dramatic departure from how the Justice Department has historically used the federal material support for terrorism statute. For decades, counterterrorism prosecutors have largely reserved the statute — 2339A — for the kinds of audacious plots that wreak real, lasting damage or whose ambition forms the stuff of movie screenplays. It’s been used in recent years to charge the leadership of Hamas over the Oct. 7 attacks, pursue men accused of assassinating the president of Haiti, and take down networks of white supremacists who allegedly conspired to blow up power plants.

But after Trump DOJ leadership issued a series of memos demanding that prosecutors target those who espouse “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” both the focus and the standards in these cases have changed. The memos direct federal law enforcement to use speech — including “extremism on migration, race, and gender” — as key criteria for who to investigate and against whom to bring the most aggressive charges possible.

They are part of the Trump administration’s broader crusade against the left, and include executive orders labeling “Antifa” a terrorist organization and directing law enforcement to pursue investigations and possible charges against left-leaning advocacy groups and their funders.

This full-bore assault on speech is now bearing fruit.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-doj-files-9-11-era-charges-against-leftists-across-the-country