Juliette Kayyem, who was the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama’s administration, believes that Donald Trump is the “spiritual leader” of a “domestic terrorism movement.”
“I don’t feel comfortable calling Trump a terrorist just because I think that then we’re going to get into that debate,” she said to Dahlia Lithwick during a recent episode of the Amicus legal podcast.
“But it’s important to say that he’s the spiritual and operational leader of a domestic terrorism movement and that’s where we’ve landed.”
The former Obama official argued that Trump is fueling stochastic terrorism, which Dictionary.com defines as “public demonization of a person or group” that leads to the “incitement of a violent act.” This act, the website said, is “statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
According to Kayyem, the attempted terrorism cases and reported increase in activity of white supremacists under Trump were almost all linked to the president and his online presence. However, she said Trump made a significant shift after the election and began actively directing such violence for political purposes.
“I’m not calling all of Trump supporters terrorists. There’s a violent element that is a domestic terrorist element that is organized, and we saw it in the Capitol.”
The CNN national security analyst claimed that some individuals involved in the storming of the historic American building “knew exactly what they were doing” and pointed to their alleged use of military formation.
As reported by Rolling Stone , multiple members of the right-wing militia Oath Keepers were arrested for their involvement in the Capitol riots. The publication claimed that the group was formed in response to Obama’s election and its policies center around conspiracy theories regarding purported federal government plots to take away American liberties.
Although Kayyem believes that Trump is the leader of a terrorist movement, Ramzi Kassem has warned of the dangers of using the label. Per NPR , he claimed that the urge to label the Capitol mob as terrorists is understandable, but could work to empower the government to spy on, over-police, and over-prosecute Americans.
As The Inquisitr reported, some of Trump’s extremist supporters appear to be turning on him. In particular, some have allegedly called for his execution after he called for peace following the recent riots. Additionally, on platforms like Telegram, Gab, and 8kun, some extremists had allegedly talked about attempting to forcibly prevent Joe Biden from taking office before he was ultimately sworn-in as president.