Newly declassified intelligence reveals that the majority of the reported increase in domestic terrorism cases—used by the Biden administration to justify a broad expansion of federal law enforcement—was largely driven by a single incident: the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The artificial inflation of the domestic terrorism threat was exposed in newly declassified intelligence documents from early 2022, released earlier this year by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Just the News reported.
A “Special Analysis” report, compiled by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies in February 2022, revealed that 61 percent of all FBI domestic terrorism investigations at the time were connected to the January 6 Capitol riot. Additionally, 78 percent of arrests labeled as domestic terrorism-related in 2021 were actually tied to that single event.
For four years, the Biden administration faced criticism from conservatives and civil libertarians for allegedly ignoring key realities while capitalizing politically on the Capitol riot, labeling it an “insurrection” and a grave act of domestic terrorism. In doing so, the administration and its allies pushed to expand federal authority and law enforcement powers under the banner of aggressively combating domestic extremism.
While the Biden administration advanced its argument, neither the president nor his officials disclosed to the public how heavily the Capitol riot skewed the domestic terrorism data they relied on.
The document in question—recently declassified—was compiled in early 2022 by the “Joint Analytic Cell on Domestic Violent Extremism,” a collaborative effort between the FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). It was declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in late April.
“The FBI is investigating approximately 2,950 domestic terrorism-related cases, 61 percent of which are related to the 6 January siege of the US Capitol,” the then-classified Biden administration analysis revealed in 2022. “The size and complexity of U.S. Capitol siege-related investigations have required the Department of Justice, to include the FBI, to surge resources to investigate and prosecute Capitol siege participants, while maintaining an agile security posture to address domestic terrorism threats.”
The finding appeared in a subsection titled “Fatal Domestic Violent Extremist Attacks and FBI Investigations,” despite the fact that, contrary to repeated claims by many Democrats, none of the Capitol rioters were responsible for any fatalities.
Earlier in the intelligence analysis, the newly-released document had contended that “the number of pending FBI domestic terrorism investigations more than doubled in 2021 — from about 1,400 to about 2,900 — in part because of cases related to the siege of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.” However, the Biden administration never told the American public this, Just the News added.
The use of the phrase “in part” significantly downplayed the reality and proved highly misleading. The “61 percent” figure amounted to roughly 1,800 new domestic terrorism cases, indicating that, based on the government’s own data, there would have been approximately 300 fewer domestic terrorism cases in 2021 compared to 2020 had nearly 2,000 Capitol riot cases not been categorized as domestic terrorism.
