The Liberal Gun Club Forum

The Department of Homeland Security is sounding the alarm on the growing danger of white supremacy across the country, warning of the internet’s ability to serve as a meeting space and a breeding ground for nationalist extremism.

In a 37-page report called the Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence released Friday, the department emphasized the ease at which potential domestic terrorists can network, drawing a parallel to foreign threats.

“Similar to how ISIS inspired and connected with potential radical Islamist terrorists, white supremacist violent extremists connect with like-minded individuals online,” the report read.

“In addition to mainstream social media platforms, white supremacist violent extremists use lesser-known sites like Gab, 8chan, and EndChan, as well as encrypted channels. Celebration of violence and conspiracy theories about the ‘ethnic replacement’ of whites as the majority ethnicity in various Western countries are prominent in their online circles.”

The report comes less than two months after a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The suspect later admitted to having targeted Mexicans, and is believed to have acted on a white supremacist manifesto shared on 8chan minutes before his rampage began. The currently de-platformed site ― which was dumped by its host, Cloudflare, following the shooting ― was widely known to be a hotbed of extremism.

Gab ― another site where white supremacy runs free ― entered the news in 2018 following the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Shortly before the attack, the alleged gunman posted anti-Semitic messages on the site, accusing a Jewish charity helping refugees of bringing “invaders in that kill our people.”

In a speech Friday at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan identified white supremacist extremism as “one of the most potent ideologies driving acts of targeted violence in this country.”

“In our modern age, the continued menace of racially-based violent extremism, particularly white supremacist extremism, is an abhorrent affront to our nation, the struggle and unity of its diverse population, and the core values of both our society and our department,” he said.

However, DHS’ concern over white supremacy appears to be at odds with President Donald Trump’s sometimes racist rhetoric, which has notoriously targeted lawmakers of color, immigrants, a Muslim Gold Star family and President Barack Obama ― to name a few examples.

According to a CNN report published in August, DHS officials had to spend over a year convincing the White House that more attention needed to be given to domestic threats.

The FBI has arrested a U.S. soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb a major American news network, planned to travel to Ukraine to fight with violent far-right group Azov Battalion and allegedly distributed information online on how to build bombs. He also allegedly suggested targeting Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke. According to charging documents in the case, Jarrett William Smith, who transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, in July, joined the U.S. military only after first expressing his desire to fight in Ukraine.

On Aug. 19, 2019, Smith allegedly spoke with an FBI informant in an online chat group and discussed a plan for an attack inside the U.S., his search for more "radicals" like himself, and the possibility of killing members of the group Antifa. In suggesting that the headquarters of the major news network could be a target, Smith allegedly said: "A large vehicle bomb. Fill a vehicle full of [explosives] then fill a ping pong ball with [commonly available chemical] via drilling then injection. Put the ball in the tank of the vehicle and leave. 30 minutes later, BOOM." Then, in a Telegram conversation with an undercover FBI agent on Sept. 20, Smith allegedly had this exchange:

FBI: You got anyone down in Texas that would be a good fit for fire, destruction and death? SMITH: Outside of Beto? I don't know enough people that would be relevant enough to cause a change if they died. Smith has allegedly been in communication with another American, Craig Lang, who traveled to Ukraine and fought with another far-right group, the Right Sector. They were in contact since 2016. On Dec. 8, 2018, Smith allegedly led a group chat on Facebook with Lang that included discussing Smith's ability to build bombs.

Smith allegedly said, "Oh yeah, I got knowledge of IEDs for days. We can make cell phone IEDs in the style of the Afghans. I can teach you that." Smith was arrested on Sept. 21, and he allegedly admitted to the FBI that he provides people online with instructions for building bombs. According to charging documents, at least one of the instructions he allegedly provided in recent days would not have resulted in a viable explosive device.

He has been charged in Kansas with distributing information relating to weapons of mass destruction.

A Camp Pendleton Marine found and apprehended at a Texas rest area late Saturday is on his way back to California where he will be confined in the base brig, a Marine spokesman said Monday. Lance Cpl. Job Wallace, 20, was due back at his unit — 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines — on Sept. 17. He had been on leave in his home state of Arizona. He was found four days later at a rest stop southeast of Dallas and taken into custody by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

In an email statement Monday, 1st Lt. Cameron Edinburgh, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Division, said Wallace was on his way back to Camp Pendleton, “where he will be placed in confinement in the Camp Pendleton brig, pending adjudication of his case. The matter is currently under investigation and there are no charges to announce at this time.” On Saturday, the news outlet the Young Turks published a leaked FBI report that said Wallace was in possession of military firearms and might have been seeking to “get rid of child traffickers at the border.”

Edinburgh declined to comment on the FBI report or the Young Turks story.

Job Wallace, a Marine Corps Lance Corporal, did not return to base at Camp Pendleton in California as scheduled on September 17th, after his authorized leave. By the 18th, an automatic rifle, an M14 rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun, and a pistol, all belonging to Wallace, were reported missing, the report says.

Wallace and his unit, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marines Division, appears to have been deployed at the border as recently as September, according to a report in Newsweek.

The document does not elaborate on Wallace’s motives. However, his alleged interest in “child traffickers” and “cartel members” appears redolent of President Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric. Trump has claimed there is an “epidemic” of human trafficking and that “Coyotes and Drug Cartels are in total control of the Mexico side of the Southern Border.” Wallace’s Instagram account features a picture of him in front of Trump Tower as well as several of him posing with guns. (There’s also a photo of him next to a statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.) His Twitter account follows just 14 accounts, including Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., longtime Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, and a Twitter user who uses the pseudonym “Orwell & Good.” None of the other accounts appear to be political in nature. Orwell is the author of a self-published book lamenting that “Western birth rates have plummeted” and the decline of “values great than oneself—family, religion, nation.”

Jared Holt, an investigator at Right Wing Watch, an organization that monitors far-right groups, said: “What is described in the book echoes common themes in far-right and white nationalist propaganda, which warns its viewers of a quickly eroding Western society that will soon be unrecognizable to its inhabitants without intervention. Scaremongering over birth rates of white people, the commercialization of art, and other perceived problems designed to spur its audience into action, sometimes for white nationalist causes.”

The FBI document, from the Bureau’s Phoenix Division, was provided to TYT by a federal official who requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. The official told TYT, “I wanted to warn people of a potential impending danger. This man is armed, and with a specific message to hurt people, and we know it. Why we have not released that information, I will never understand.”