Far-right violence a growing threat and law enforcement’s top domestic terrorism concern

Geoff Bennett:

The former leader of the extremist Proud Boys group, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in prison today for his role in the January 6 attack.

Laura Barrón-López has more on what this sentence means and the larger threat of far right extremism.

Laura Barrón-López:

Enrique Tarrio's sentence is the harshest punishment handed down to date for those convicted for their involvement on January 6.

Tarrio led the Proud Boys, a white power group that played a critical part in carrying out the insurrection. The group is just one part of a trend, an increase in white supremacist and far right violence. Those extremist movements, top U.S. law enforcement officials say, pose the biggest domestic terrorism threat facing the country.

To discuss this, I'm joined by Kathleen Belew, a historian at Northwestern University and author of "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America," and Seamus Hughes of the University of Nebraska Omaha's National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education Center.

Kathleen and Seamus, thank you so much for joining us.

Kathleen, to you first.

Tarrio wasn't at the Capitol on January 6, because he was arrested a few days prior for setting fire to a Black Lives Matter banner. But he did direct his Proud Boys to attack the Capitol without him. What's the significance of this 22-year sentence and the domestic terrorism enhancement that was applied to it?

Kathleen Belew, Northwestern University:

So, the domestic terrorism enhancement is important because it recognizes the intent of the January 6 event.

Now, when we're thinking about January 6, we should always be thinking about a broad group of people, not all of whom had plans to become violent and storm the Capitol that day. But in the case of Tarrio and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and affiliated groups who have now been found guilty and sentenced for seditious conspiracy, they were planning to do this.

They were violent. And they're part of a long, decades-long movement of white power activists and militant right activists who have waged war on the United States since the early 1980s. So this is still not the maximum sentence; 22 years, the headlines are reading long sentence, but the prosecutors were asking for 33.

And, in each case, the judge has handed down below the recommended sentencing guidelines for these defendants.

Laura Barrón-López:

And, Seamus, broadening this out, as Kathleen said, this is — the Proud Boys are a part of a much larger movement, are also a part of this web of increased threats.

You and researchers at your university have compiled data that shows that, in the last 10 years, there have been more than 540 federal arrest for people who violently threatened public officials. Roughly 45 percent of those are ideological, often anti-government or racist in nature; 84 percent were for threats against election officials, candidates, lawmakers, law enforcement, and military.

Seamus, when you look at all of these threats — all of these arrests that your researchers have compiled, along with these sentences that we have seen in relation to the January 6 insurrection, do you have any hope that recruitment or — that recruitment will die down for such extremist groups or that people will stop believing in these conspiracies and ideologies?

Seamus Hughes, University of Nebraska Omaha: So, unfortunately, so, the trend line tells us no, right?

So if you look at domestic terrorism arrests in the last few years, the FBI was investigating 850 people three years ago. Now they're investigating 2,700. If you look at the trend lines of people who have been arrested for arrested for arrests against — threats against public officials, that's going much, much higher.

And so, no, I don't think necessarily arrests are going to stop this. It's going to be a larger issue on how to address this, but it's important for us as society to put a finger on the scale and say, this is unacceptable. We can't allow this happening.

And so, of course, some people will know, you can't arrest your way out of this problem, but it is a first start for it.

Laura Barrón-López:

And then, Seamus, I also want to run you through some of the recent threats, some specifics, details about them.

All of the people here have either been arrested or sentenced this year. A Texas woman using racist slurs threatened to kill a Black judge in the Trump January 6 case. An Illinois woman threatened Trump and his son Barron. A New Mexico man sent transphobic death threats to a Texas congresswoman.

And then an Iowa man threatened to hang an Arizona election official. What is the trend that you see here?

Seamus Hughes:

Well, it's important to note that's all in the last three weeks, right? So the trend line is going up.

You look at — the Capitol Police put out their annual threat assessment every year. They said 7,500 active threats against elected officials in the Capitol. And that's been true for the last five years, in terms of those numbers. Federal arrests for the last 10 years have steadily been rising.

And so this is a — unfortunately, a real problem. We have normalized violence and violent rhetoric in a way that's concerning. And it's not just that we — clearly, when you look at the threats, you have a number of individuals that come from right-wing or anti-government extremists. But, unfortunately so, there's some bipartisanship of our threats.

So, if you look at threats against Barron Trump, against Congressman Santos, against a number of the federal judges covering the Trump trial, this is, unfortunately, kind of pervasive throughout, and federal officials are starting to sit up and take notice of it.

Laura Barrón-López:

Kathleen, when you look at Tarrio's actions and his sentencing, the racist killing of three Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, a California woman who was killed for displaying a Pride flag outside her store, are these all connected?

Kathleen Belew:

Absolutely.

We are talking about a broad groundswell of white power activity, militant right activity. The Proud Boys have to be considered alongside other public-facing groups like the Oath Keepers and Two Percenters and similar groups like this, other January 6 groups, and also alongside the violent underground of this movement, which includes groups like Atomwaffen and The Base, may or may not eventually turn out to include other sorts of underground activity and other sorts of attack, and certainly includes the — quote, unquote — "lone wolf" shootings in Jacksonville and Buffalo and Charleston and Christchurch and El Paso and Pittsburgh.

We can go on and on and on. This is all part of the same movement. It is an opportunistic movement. It will use this moment for recruitment, as it always does. So it would be a huge mistake to think that these sentences will slow the activity of this movement. This will — this is like cutting the head off a hydra.

We are still very much under threat.

Laura Barrón-López:

Seamus, do you think that Americans are becoming desensitized to this increased level of white supremacist extremist violence?

Seamus Hughes:

Absolutely, unfortunately so.

It reminds me a lot of school shootings, in terms of the ability for our public and our media to be able to move on to the next day. Jacksonville was only a 24-hour story for folks out there where it's a real life and stays with the victims there forever.

The problem when you talk about this is the normalization of violence, right? I worry less about the president and the former president getting threats or elected officials, because there's a security apparatus to deal with that.

My concern is the local election official who doesn't have that apparatus, doesn't know who to call when they get those threats, the people — we look at the threats of individuals who've been arrested the last 10 years, there's plenty of examples of individuals who ran for city council, got a threat and said, I don't want to do this anymore.

So we have to talk about the slow burn of democracy on this one. And this does affect how we address and how we are as a society.

Laura Barrón-López:

Kathleen Belew of Northwestern University and Seamus Hughes of the University of Nebraska Omaha, thank you both for your time.

Seamus Hughes:

Thank you.

Kathleen Belew:

Thank you.