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A bombshell of newly uncovered information reveals the Biden administration using federal funds to wage a covert war of dirty tricks designed to destroy the reputations of prominent Christian organizations, several highly respected conservative public policy groups, a major cable news network and even the Republican National Committee. These groups are among the targets of a program aiming to systemically delegitimize political dissent beyond the president’s own party.  

Under the Biden administration’s direction, the Department of Homeland Security has funneled $40 million taxpayer dollars away from bona fide anti-terrorism programs and into a weaponized operation deceptively known as the Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP).  

Originally conceived to target terrorists and violent gangs, the Biden administration hijacked the program and subsumed it within the DHS Center for Prevention, Programs and Partnerships (CP3), a terrorism task force reimagined for political ends. 

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In an internal memo obtained exclusively by MRC Free Speech America, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas himself characterizes the program as a "high priority." The 80 organizations that comprise the TVTP network receive grants ranging between $85,000 and $1.9 million and attend DHS-sponsored training seminars aimed at stifling viewpoints the administration euphemistically refers to as terrorist-level threats – namely, those of political opponents. 

photo of President Biden

Documents indicate President Joe Biden is engaged in yet another example of government dirty tricks. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

In Ohio, the University of Dayton received a $352,109 TVTP grant to establish PREVENTS-OH, an operation guised as an effort to fight "domestic violence extremism and hate." As a part of its grant application to secure this funding, PREVENTS-OH included a graph titled, "The Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization" in which it identifies the violent extremists it works to suppress, including the Christian Broadcasting Network, The Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Turning Point USA, PragerU, the National Rifle Association, Breitbart News, the American Conservative Union Foundation and even the Republican National Committee.  

Michael Loadenthal of the University of Cincinnati presented this chart and other charts at a PREVENTS-OH seminar to teach students how to fight against speech with which they disagree on social media platforms like Telegram, Facebook and Rumble.  

A self-described anarchist organizer and insurgent, Loadenthal has long been associated with Antifa, a group that has initiated harrowing acts of violence across the nation. "A lot of things we’re doing are illegal," he boasted in a PREVENTS-OH video of its "White Nationalism Workshop," "a lot of it involves breaking the law." 

While DHS and most grantees stonewalled against repeated FOIA requests, evidence acquired from three other sources shows that the Ohio TVTP grantee considered the prospect of the GOP winning back the U.S. House in 2022 as a "risk" that had to be shared with DHS. 

It comes as no surprise, then, that the grantee’s service area includes large portions of the district represented by Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, which oversees the program.  

Using the terminology associated with warfare and espionage, the Ohio grantee’s training program instructs participants to use "trade craft" to "infiltrate and surveil" conservative groups.  

Conference trainees learn the five-steps by which "antifascists" gather information, including "Passive Observation, Join and Listen, Document, Archive & Map, Active Intelligence and Embed."  

Many DHS program participants are trained to "create dossiers" and then "observe, undermine, disrupt and infiltrate" organizations. The Republican National Committee, the Christian Broadcasting Network, The Heritage Foundation, Fox News and many others are identified as "far-right" extremists and linked to militant Nazis in the same seminar, painting an implied bullseye on the organizations. 

Michael Loadenthal of the University of Cincinnati presented this chart and other charts at a PREVENTS-OH seminar to teach students how to fight against speech with which they disagree on social media platforms like Telegram, Facebook and Rumble.  

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The TVTP program is far from President Joe Biden’s first foray into the dirty tricks department. Biden has a long and consistent history of wielding government power against his opponents. That includes: 

  • His failed attempt to establish the Orwellian-inspired Ministry of Truth (a.k.a., the "Disinformation Governance Board");
  • His recently exposed efforts to fund the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to attack conservative media outlets;
  • His plot with President Obama to put "cops" into newsrooms in 2014 (which was stopped only after Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai blew the whistle on this Federal Communications Commission project);
  • And four years before that when the IRS targeted conservative tea party groups.

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The scandal-plagued Biden administration’s latest DHS disgrace needs to be investigated. It’s past time for Mayorkas to go, and those responsible for criminal behavior must be prosecuted.  

Government persecution to quell political dissent has always been the hallmark of totalitarian regimes from East Germany to North Korea. Make no mistake: It has arrived in the United States of America.    

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Dan Schneider is vice president of MRC Free Speech America