(C) Common Dreams
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Inside the Government, Addressing Domestic Terrorism Has Been Fraught [1]

['Katie Benner']

Date: 2019-08-11  

A decade later, there is clear evidence that violence by white extremists is an undeniable and intensifying problem, especially after the racially motivated mass shooting in El Paso. But the question of how the government should attack domestic extremism, especially white supremacists, remains as politically fraught as ever, if for far different reasons, under President Trump.

Federal law enforcement has been tracking the rise of domestic terrorism. The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, told lawmakers last month that the bureau had arrested almost as many domestic terrorists as foreign terrorists this year. He said most of the racially motivated domestic terrorism cases were probably connected to white supremacy.

But a look at the experience of the Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for collecting data on and analyzing threats to the United States, shows how political considerations have constrained efforts to give the problem more prominence and develop policies to counter it.

During the Obama years, the pressure to minimize the problem came largely from outside the administration, primarily from Republicans who saw it as a diversion from fighting Islamic extremism but also to a lesser degree from people on the left concerned about the implications for the civil liberties of American citizens.

Under Mr. Trump, the skepticism is rooted inside the White House.

Officials at the department have felt they could not broach topics like domestic terrorism and white supremacist violence with Mr. Trump because he was not interested in those concerns, two people familiar with deliberations inside the administration said.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/us/politics/domestic-terrorism.html

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