A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ‘Experts Group’ that included deep state ‘laptop letter‘ partisans James Clapper and John Brennan, advocated using Jan. 6 and the Mar-a-Lago raid to justify expanding surveillance of political dissent.

Illustration via aflegal.org

This latest bombshell comes from America First Legal, which is suing the Biden DHS along with former acting DNI Richard Grenell over the September 2023 formation of the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” which they have accused of violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act due to lack of balance and transparency.

/1🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨

Docs show Biden’s DHS intel group used Jan. 6 & the Mar-a-Lago raid to justify expanding surveillance of political dissent.

The group advocated for “collection based on speech” — as in spying on Americans for criticizing their gov’t.#DeepStateDiaries PART 3: pic.twitter.com/TbtMlsI3Fd

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 24, 2024

According to these new documents, one group member noted that “prior to January 6th” (i.e., under the Trump administration), analysts thought that “it was inappropriate to collect” intelligence on Americans.”

After Jan. 6, however, they observed a change in collection and reporting methods.

Continued via X;

The documents indicate that under the Biden Administration, the federal government has used January 6 to justify expanding efforts to collect intelligence on what they deem “DVE” or “Domestic Violent Extremists.”

As the second installment of the #DeepStateDiaries showed, “DVE” or “domestic violent extremists” is the group’s term for people who are “religious,” “in the military,” or support President Trump.

The Brennan-Clapper group discussed “collection based on sites where they expect to see indicators,” suggesting that the federal government sought to monitor sites they viewed as “domestic extremism threats.”

Notably, one group member asked, “When you are looking at speech online, how do you know if it is serious? Political? Hyperbole?”

The Biden Administration’s historical approach, as evidenced by these documents and the DOJ’s sentencing of Douglass Mackey to 7 months in prison for posting memes ahead of the 2016 election, is that speech online should be considered “serious” only when it comes from conservatives.

As another data point, later in the conversation, someone else again mentioned how “efforts to collect” intelligence have noticeably changed post-January 6.

In response to the lawsuit, the Biden administration agreed to dissolve the Experts Group and turn over documents to America First Legal, which is now blowing the whistle.

And yet another participant noted that the “support” for the “mission set” has changed post-January 6 at the “departmental” level and has “become political.”

The translation is that the committee appears to have been interested in DHS using the DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis to push the bounds on activity—traditionally thought to be off limits—and is using January 6 as the excuse to do it.

The following statement, from an unknown Group member sheds some light on where that political support is coming from…

Recall that this Group was full of security state officials who aligned themselves with the political left (98% of the political contributions from the Group members went to Democratic candidates for office, whereas 1% went to Republican candidates for office).

/13 This Group Member went so far as to encourage I&A to lean into using practices that 1) even the FBI says it does not have the authority to do, 2) the Senate has refused to give to any law enforcement agency, and 3) Members of Congress generally oppose.

But in the name of… pic.twitter.com/4oy2l9Reh6

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 24, 2024

Disturbingly, the group went on to discuss that around January 6, the “FBI testified that they were limited with what they could do with social media,” but that “action reporting” post-January 6 may have changed.

This suggests that the group was planning to potentially advise DHS to ramp up efforts to monitor political dissent on social media.

The group also discussed using the fabricated and illegal raid on President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago – where the FBI staged photographs to manufacture incriminating evidence – to justify its expanded activities…

With respect to Mar-a-Lago, one Group member said there was “reason to be concerned about a violent reaction” after the raid. 

The group also discussed whether this is “politically driven or in [their] mission space,” and one group member noted they should be aware of the “public optics” of this activity.

In considering threats of “violence,” the group also discussed a hypothetical scenario in which “there is a shooting with 12 injured” and whether that would require a national response from DHS and if it falls into a “domestic violent extremism” category.

/19 These documents, obtained exclusively by AFL through litigation against DHS, prove there is a pronounced difference between how I&A operated (collected and reported intelligence for DHS) before and after January 6. They demonstrate how the standards followed under the Trump…

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 24, 2024

CIA chief John Brennan & intelligence community chief James Clapper effectively argue here that January 6 should have ended the First Amendment. https://t.co/rgGEY85zCc

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) June 24, 2024