(LifeSiteNews) — The Biden administration is targeting Trump supporters for surveillance ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to an exclusive report by Newsweek. The news comes after the Biden administration has faced increasing accusations from conservatives of wielding the power of federal law enforcement to target opponents of the regime.
On Wednesday, Newsweek published an exclusive report after three months of investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of alleged domestic terror threats.
According to the report, the FBI has created a new threat subcategory that has become used within the bureau to track Trump supporters.
The category, dubbed AGAAVE-Other, refers to “anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism,” and was created in October 2022 following an FBI and DHS report declaring that “sociopolitical developments” linked to Trump and his supporters “will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”
Newsweek said the document “shifted the definition of AGAAVE” so that “groups could be so labeled because of their politics,” a “gigantic departure for the Bureau.”
The AGAAVE-Other classification was then “[i]ntroduced without any announcement and reported here for the first time.”
“We’ve crossed the Rubicon,” a senior intelligence official told Newsweek via email. “Trump’s army constitutes the greatest threat of violence domestically … politically … that’s the reality and the problem set.”
“That’s what the FBI, as a law enforcement agency, has to deal with,” he said. “But whether Trump and his supporters are a threat to national security, to the country, whether they represent a threat of civil war? That’s a trickier question. And that’s for the country to deal with, not the FBI.”
Individuals tagged under the FBI’s new threat category are described as “domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined … .” The alleged “extremists” include those “motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.”
“Though Trump and MAGA are never mentioned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters,” the outlet reported.
An anonymous FBI officer told Newsweek that the “carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan,” even though, for practical purposes within the bureau, the new tag “refers to MAGA.” He said, technically, Biden supporters could be included.
Another anonymous FBI source acknowledged roiling concerns about the weaponization of the federal government against conservatives, noting that the current administration must “tread very carefully” in how it proceeds with its tracking and surveillance operations.
“The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” the source said. Newsweek observed that officials in the FBI are risking “provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter.”
The news comes after U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration have long viewed Donald Trump and his supporters as posing a threat to “democracy,” frequently evoking imagery of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, which has been framed by Democrats as an attempted “insurrection.” Meanwhile, conservatives have increasingly accused the Biden administration of using federal law enforcement to target its political adversaries.
Since Biden took office, Republicans have pointed to a slew of actions by Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) as examples of its alleged weaponization against conservatives.
Such actions and memoranda include the allocation of DOJ resources to keep an eye on parents opposed to radical curricula and COVID-19 mandates in schools, the raids and prosecutions against pro-life advocates like Mark Houck, the notorious Richmond, Virginia, FBI memo directing surveillance operations against “radical traditionalist Catholics,” and the FBI’s unprecedented Mar-a-Lago raid followed by the DOJ’s criminal prosecution of Trump.
Earlier this year, the GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives created a “Weaponization of Government” Select Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio to investigate alleged instances of FBI and other federal intelligence agencies’ meddling in domestic politics, LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Ashley Sadler
Ashley Sadler is a California-based journalist for LifeSiteNews. She has a deep love of American history and the Traditional Latin Mass. In her free time she enjoys mountain-biking, taking road trips, and reading classic literature. You can follow on her on Twitter @asadler216
