Trump to label "left-wing" groups as domestic terrorist organizations, a designation with no significance in law

An investigation of “campaigns” by groups seeking “radicalization” could target an enormous range of everyday activity, despite the First Amendment. Here's how that works in the law.

The Trump Administration recently issued several orders that seek to engage federal law enforcement agencies in suppressing what it describes as a broad movement supporting domestic political violence. The orders attempt to apply definitions and legal charges typically reserved for international terrorism cases to what it sees as domestic terrorist activities in ways that greatly stretch federal law and policy over the last several decades. Civil liberties experts worry that these new orders could form the basis of a broad crackdown of left-wing political activism and political opposition to the Trump Administration.

“NSPM 7” creates vague categories for political violence (but not right-wing political violence)

In late September, the Trump Administration issued a new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM 7), a type of document that typically aligns policy between national security and federal law enforcement agencies and aren’t always immediately made public. NSPM 7 directs the national Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to focus investigations into political violence, domestic terrorism, and support for terrorist activity by those holding a wide and vague set of ideals. The broad sets of ideas listed include “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” It makes no mention, however, of right-wing or white-supremacist violence, which independent and government analyses blame for between 75% and 80% of domestic terror deaths since 2001.

The White House has taken specific aim at “antifa,” an umbrella term for antifascist activism that is not actually an organization or ideological movement. Activists self-identifying as “antifa” were active in confronting pro-Trump and white supremacist protestors during his first term, notably during the “Unite the Right” attack on Charlottesville in 2017. Shortly before issuing NSPM 7, President Trump issued an Executive Order declaring “Antifa” to be a “domestic terrorist organization”. NSPM 7 further grants the Attorney General the ability to recommend that other groups engaging in activities that fit the definition of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Code be designated a “domestic terrorist organization,” too. There’s just one complication: no law defines a “domestic terrorist organization,” so the designation has no significance.