Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

FBI Making List of American “Extremists,” Leaked Memo Reveals
Ken Klippenstein
10 Dec 2025
🖨️ Print Article
Pam Bondi and Kash Patel

A leaked FBI memo confirms the bureau's goal is the criminalization of leftist political activity. 

Originally published in Ken Klippenstein.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.

The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”

That language echoes the so-called indicators of terrorism identified by President Trump’s directive National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, which the memo says it’s intended to implement. Where NSPM-7 was a declaration of war on just about anyone who isn’t MAGA, this is the war plan for how the government will wage it on a tactical level.

In addition to compiling a list of undesirables, Bondi directs the FBI to enhance the capabilities (and publicity) of its tipline in order to more aggressively solicit tips from the American public on, well, other Americans. To that end, Bondi also directs the FBI to establish “a cash reward system” for information leading to identification and arrest of leadership figures within these purported domestic terrorist organizations. (The memo later instructs the FBI to “establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members” of the groups.)

The payouts don’t end there. Justice Department grants are now to prioritize funding to programs for state and local law enforcement to go after domestic terrorism.

In a section titled “Defining the domestic terrorism threat,” the memo cites “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment” — indicators that federal law enforcement are instructed to refer to FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). Those JTTFs are then instructed to “use all available investigative tools” in order to “map the full network of culpable actors involved” in both “inside and outside the United States.”

The memo also directs the FBI and JTTFs to retroactively investigate incidents going back five years, authorizing the JTTFs in particular to use everything at their disposal to do so.

“Upon receipt of these referrals, the JTTFs shall use all available investigative tools, consistent with law enforcement internal policies and statutory obligations, to map the full network of culpable actors involved in the referred conduct inside and outside the United States,” the memo says.

For months, major media outlets have largely blown off the story of NSPM-7, thinking it was all just Trump bluster and too crazy to be serious. But a memo like this one shows you that the administration is absolutely taking this seriously — even if the media are not — and is actively working to operationalize NSPM-7.

NSPM-7 was signed in September largely in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk, which was a 9/11-type event for the Trump administration, as I’ve reported. (Kirk’s assassination is referenced explicitly in the Justice Department memo.) As anyone who lived through 9/11 can remember, the government doesn’t always think rationally in moments like those, to say the least. And so here we are, with a new War on Terrorism — only this time, millions of Americans like you and I could be the target.

Ken Klippenstein is an Independent journalist covering national security and U.S. politics.

FBI
domestic terrorism
Political Repression

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Turtle Island Liberation Front Warning for Activists
17 December 2025
Arrests of members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front are the latest in a decades-long effort to criminalize the left and to make
Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
Your Anti-Communism Problem—and Mine
17 December 2025
‘Anti-Communism Week’ is a legal blueprint for crushing dissent.
Iain Carlos , Sam Carlen
DOJ Knew About - and Used - Notorious Homan Square "Black Site"
19 March 2025
It wasn't just Chicago Police operating Homan Square, the U.S.
Sophie Hurwitz
New University Rules Crack Down on Gaza Protests
18 September 2024
Dozens of campuses quietly implemented new “expressive activity” policies over the summer—effectively banning many forms of protest.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Detroit Wayne State U Faculty/Staff for Justice in Palestine Formed
26 June 2024
Wayne State University faculty and staff and the surrounding community steped up to support students as the school continues its repression aga
Students for Justice in Palestine
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Repression of Campus Palestine Solidarity Reveals the Nature of the State
01 May 2024
Campus protests in solidarity with Palestine have been met with brute police force and condemnation of
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik
Jacqueline Luqman
Colleges and Universities Collaborate With The State To Silence Pro-Palestine Protests
24 April 2024
On campuses across the country, students and faculty are finding various ways to take action against the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
Rep Rashida Talib speaking at her censureship hearing
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Gaza War Crimes Make a Mockery of Western "Democracy"
08 November 2023
The "democracies" of the world don't live up to this concept they claim is so important to them.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People's Socialist Party
David S. D'Amato
The FBI’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent
10 October 2023
Originally published in 
Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
17 August 2022
Why would Black people laud the FBI or criticize protection against self-incrimination? The FBI search of Donald Trump's home has rea

More Stories


  • Cradle Correspondent
    Gaza's Smoke Clouds the West Bank's Flames: The Colonial Project Made Permanent
    10 Dec 2025
    As international eyes stay locked on Gaza, Tel Aviv is executing its most aggressive campaign of ethnic cleansing and land theft in the occupied West Bank since 1948.
  • Jill Clark-Gollub , Margaret Flowers
    First International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures
    10 Dec 2025
    Unilateral coercive measures, sanctions, are weapons of mass suffering. This new international day marks a global rejection of the West’s economic warfare against sovereign nations.
  • Maurice Carney
    United States Secures its National Security Interests In Congo Peace Deal
    10 Dec 2025
    The so-called "peace agreement" between Rwanda and Congo prioritizes U.S. access to mineral riches. The violence carried out against thousands of civilians continues.
  • x
    Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Year in Rear View: What the Lack of Principled and Pronounced Opposition Reveals About that US Left (Or, Why Oppressed People Best Watch Your Backs)
    10 Dec 2025
    Trump’s accelerated fascism is met with the silence of a compromised U.S. "left." Its institutions, tethered to capitalism and the Democratic Party, reveal they are part of the machine they claim to…
  • Essam Elkorghli
    De-Baathification 2.0: One Year Since the Fall of Syria
    10 Dec 2025
    Western media celebrate the terrorist they supported as Syria's savior. Syria’s new U.S.-backed rulers have erased anti-colonial history, enacted neo-liberal policies, and welcomed Israeli occupation…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us