Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified intelligence records on Friday detailing how the Biden Administration labeled those who opposed COVID-19 pandemic measures, such as lockdowns and masking, as “domestic violent extremists.”
Former FBI agent Steve Friend previously told Public
“It really talks about people who may likely turn out to be domestic violent extremists or those who may turn to violence because of these specific ‘ideologies’ that they hold,” Gabbard added.
“And there’s a consistent thread through here that these ideologies that they are characterizing as potentially turning into potentially violent activities happen to be people who were using their First Amendment rights to oppose certain policies of the Biden Administration.”
One section of the report claimed that some DVEs may “employ a number of techniques, some of which may be criminal, whereas others may constitute the exercise of rights protected by the US Constitution.”
The section appears to have been used as rationale for the Biden Administration to censor speech relating to COVID-19 measures, as evidenced by the “Twitter Files” releases. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s then-director of digital media, and social-media executives, show that the Biden Administration pressured social media giants to censor content that could cause “vaccine hesitancy.”
On March 14, 2021, Mr. Flaherty emailed a Facebook executive with the subject line “You are hiding the ball” and a link to a Washington Post article about Facebook’s own research into “the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy.”
“I think there is a misunderstanding,” the executive replied, to which Flaherty shot back that there “was no misunderstanding.” He added that the administration was “gravely concerned” that the company’s lack of censorship was driving vaccine hesitancy.
“Some of the examples that are focused on here have to do with those who oppose the COVID vaccine mandates, those who oppose the mask mandates, and parents who were concerned that their children going to school may be forcibly vaccinated with the COVID vaccine without the consent or awareness of parents,” Gabbard confirmed Friday.
that the designation was created in order to open formal investigations into the previous administration’s political opponents.
Gabbard confirmed the report by releasing a December 2021 analysis that was co-authored by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Titled, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates,” the 7-page report gave vague descriptions of what would qualify an individual as a “domestic violent extremist.”
The report listed those who subscribed to Q-Anon conspiracy theories and even individuals who simply questioned mRNA technology as potential threats.
“Prominent narratives include,” the report stated, “the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.”
According to Friend, the report was authored in order to censor speech online. “It’s a way they could go to social media companies and say, ‘You don’t want to propagate domestic terrorism, so you should take down this content,” he said.
Gabbard seemed to agree with that assessment while speaking with Fox News on Friday. “When you look at the language of these documents that I’ve declassified, first, the strategic implementation plan of the Biden administration’s designation of potential violent domestic extremists,” she said.
