DHS Issues Its First National Terrorism Bulletin for Domestic Extremists

The Department of Homeland Security issued its first-ever national terrorism bulletin about violent domestic extremists, warning they could attack in the coming weeks, emboldened by the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

DHS, in an advisory Wednesday, said violent extremists opposed to the government and the presidential transition “could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence,” though the department said it doesn’t have evidence of a specific plot.

The bulletin said that violent extremists have been “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force” as well as “long-standing racial and ethnic tension, including opposition to immigration.”

DHS has commonly issued terrorism bulletins, though those warnings usually focus on foreign-inspired threats. While this advisory mentions terrorists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is notable for its focus on domestic violent extremists—the first such bulletin ever published, according to a DHS spokesman.

The most recent DHS bulletin—a warning that Iran had the potential to carry out cyberattacks—came a year ago. DHS didn’t issue a bulletin ahead of the planned Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C. that devolved into a mob attack at the Capitol, despite public chatter online about the extremists’ plans.

The advisory of unspecified threats came as thousands of National Guard troops are set to remain at the Capitol into March. On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers asked the Pentagon for more information on why. “The National Guard should be used as an option of absolute last resort,” the lawmakers said in a letter.

“If there is a significant, very real, very defined threat, then no problem,” said Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a former Special Forces soldier, in an interview. Mr. Waltz said he is aware of online chatter among extremist groups, with some asking when the Guard might stand down, but broad comments like that could push the substantial Guard deployment out indefinitely, he said.

Some congressional staffers and extremism researchers say there are concerns about possible violence surrounding former President Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings, as well as in connection with March 4, the nation’s original Inauguration Day. QAnon conspiracy theorists say that could be the day that Mr. Trump again becomes president.

The DHS bulletin, in effect until the end of April, advises law enforcement to continue prioritizing protection of government buildings.

The bulletin also cited extremists’ “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives,” an apparent reference to conspiracy theories that motivated many of the people who stormed the Capitol. Many rioters were followers of QAnon and said they believed that Mr. Trump didn’t lose the election.

Officials at DHS’s intelligence branch suggested pushing out this bulletin in the lead-up to President Biden’s inauguration, and that then-acting Secretary Pete Gaynor and acting deputy Ken Cuccinelli discussed the idea but rejected it because of a lack of credible, specific intelligence, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

Messrs. Gaynor and Cuccinelli couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The bulletin signals a return to regular order, said Tom Warrick, a former senior DHS official under the Trump, Obama and Bush administrations.

“The real purpose of it is to signal a bright-line distinction that existed under Republican and Democratic administrations that acts of violence will trigger a law-enforcement response—constitutionally protected speech won’t,” Mr. Warrick said. “The bulletin doesn’t make mention of’ ‘right’ or ‘left’ ” and is intentionally nonpartisan, he said.

“This is a bulletin that should have been issued in late December,” said Elizabeth Neumann, a former DHS counterterrorism official who served during the Trump administration and has been critical of of Mr. Trump and how the department has approached the issue.

Since the Jan. 6 riot, far-right groups have used increasingly violent rhetoric in online chats, sharing bomb-making materials and guerrilla tactics and calling for asymmetric war with the government, according to researchers at the Soufan Group, a nonpartisan center that tracks extremist movements.

“There is open talk of war, that the war is coming, that ‘2021 will be our year,’ ” said Mollie Saltskog, a Soufan Group analyst. “This is all in the aftermath of January 6.”

Earlier this week, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested 500 members of the D.C. National Guard to remain activated through March 12 to bolster security for several events, including the impeachment trial, according to a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But the mayor has also sought to reassure residents, and sent a tweet on Wednesday urging businesses to take down boards from their storefronts.

Lawmakers and current and former government officials are scrutinizing how the department and other law-enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared for Jan. 6.

In the weeks leading up to the planned Jan. 6 rallies, the FBI and the DHS’s intelligence branch opted not to send a threat assessment to other law-enforcement agencies, which would have helped other agencies plan, the Journal earlier reported.

That was despite online chatter in the weeks leading up to the protests, during which extremists posted on social media about their plans to “storm” the Capitol.

The Capitol Police union released a statement Wednesday that said nearly 140 officers were injured on Jan. 6, and cited one death, a subsequent death by suicide and multiple brain injuries among its members related to the riot.

“They are keeping the National Guard there, thousands of them, to make sure that we have the security that we need, and also to provide some relief to the Capitol Police,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), who leads a House subcommittee that funds the Capitol Police, on a Tuesday media call.

Publicly, the FBI and DHS have said that domestic extremists, particularly white supremacists, pose the most lethal threat to the country, based on the number of ideologically motivated homicides in recent years. Among so-called domestic violent extremists, white supremacists carried out half of all deadly attacks—eight out of 16—in 2018 and 2019, DHS has said.

Still law enforcement has struggled to shift the federal apparatus to address the threat, current and former officials say.

Photo: Pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. - LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS

Link: DHS Issues Its First National Terrorism Bulletin for Domestic Extremists - WSJ