Last month, the White House issued two executive orders that direct federal law enforcement to start cracking down on the political opposition.
One of the two memos prompted some confusion and mockery for its attempt to designate “antifa” a terrorist organization. But the second has gone largely unnoticed in the mainstream press, with only a few independent journalists, left-leaning outlets, and the Communist Party USA drawing attention to them. Several white shoe law firms issued client alerts describing the moves as turning 9/11-era counterterrorism tools against the American public.
You should be paying attention. When paired together, the orders direct federal law enforcement to take MAGA posturing about “antifa” — a catch-all term gesturing toward amorphous, left-leaning protests groups and actions — very seriously. The memos classify huge swaths of progressive political advocacy and belief as potentially contributing to political violence and domestic terrorism, directing law enforcement and several federal agencies to investigate and possibly charge left-leaning advocacy groups and their funders.
It’s already had an effect: attorneys and advocates told TPM that even in the short time since the orders were signed, nonprofits and foundations are already acting with the understanding that the federal government may impose a cost on their advocacy.
Directing investigations and indictments against groups and their funders over beliefs violates the First Amendment in a way that’s new even for this administration, experts told TPM.
Lee Rowland, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, called the order “a clear blueprint for going after political enemies.”
“It is absolutely intended to create fear and confusion among basically the entire nonprofit class in ensuring that they are not associating with or funding anyone that publicly holds views that the Trump administration disfavors,” she told TPM.
The first order deems Antifa a terrorist organization.
The second order, a document called National Security Presidential Memorandum (NPSM-7) issued on Sept. 25, threatens to make the staple MAGA fantasy of turning federal power against various progressive groups into reality.
To do that, it labels broad categories of normal political speech as contributing to terrorism. The White House directs law enforcement to consider “extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality,” as well as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” alongside such ambitions as “the overthrow of the United States Government.”
The orders have little legal grounding (the Antifa order, for example, applies a law that exists only for foreign groups to a poorly defined term for domestic protestors). But that does not fully blunt their effect.
One former DOJ counterterrorism attorney argued to TPM that the threat of the orders comes not necessarily in the form of imminent charges but in the lengthy, resource-draining investigations that are set to begin. They could have other impacts, too, on opposition groups seeking to participate in politics or civic society: funders curtailing contributions to certain nonprofits, advocacy groups rolling back campaigns that differ from the White House’s view of social issues, and other firms like banks declining to work with organizations on the administration’s list.
“Material support charges aren’t going to follow, because there’s no framework for doing any of this,” the person said. “It’s a legal nullity in many respects, but financial institutions don’t care about that.”
Bringing the War on Terror Home
For years, people who are now senior officials in Trump’s second administration have openly fantasized about using broad federal powers, previously largely reserved for fighting foreign terrorist organizations, against domestic political opponents.
Vice President JD Vance suggested in a November 2021 talk at the Claremont Institute that the next Republican administration should target nonprofits, foundations, and university endowments that put out views opposed to those of the conservative movement. He called university endowments, for example, “ammunition for the left,” and said that tax breaks, liability protections, and subsidies afforded to nonprofits and other advocacy groups should not be given to those “driving this country into the ground.
During the 2024 campaign, MAGA think tanks devoted resources towards reviewing legal arguments that the Bush Administration made for curtailing civil liberties during the War on Terror. In July, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem remarked at a gathering of the Homeland Security Council (Bo Dietl, Rudy Giuliani, and a former attorney for Corey Lewandowski were in attendance) that her department “has authorities that have never been utilized before.”
“I’m going to need some good minds on how to use those authorities,” she added.
The White House has cast Charlie Kirk’s murder last month as the missing catalyst — a reason to move ahead with policies it has long sought to enact.
The memos accomplish that first through Joint Terrorism Task Forces — law enforcement units created after 9/11 that merge the FBI with local law enforcement in each state. They are now directed to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt” groups and people engaged in domestic terrorism or what the memo defines as supporting it, including “extremism” on race or gender, or “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity.” Per the memo, targets include “institutional and individual funders” as well as “officers and employees” of organizations that espouse opinions the White House disfavors.
Under the NSPM-7, the Treasury Department is to examine “financial flows” and issue guidance to financial institutions to find “illicit funding streams.” The memo directs the IRS to examine tax-exempt entities that may be “directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism” and refer them to the DOJ for criminal investigation.
At a White House meeting last month announcing the executive order, Trump name-checked right-wing bogeyman George Soros and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman as potential targets. Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, has used the orders to darkly intone and fantasize further. Channeling Tom Clancy, Miller wrote at one point on X that a JTTF had been “dispatched” and that “all necessary resources will be utilized.”
There’s a lot here that is ripe for legal challenge, civil liberties experts say. Client alerts issued by large law firms point out, in inimitable language, that it may “affec[t] protected First Amendment activities.”
But it signals that the administration has taken a big step in its effort to weaken and crack down on the opposition.
“I don’t know that you could get more aggressive,” the former DOJ official added. “It says on its face that they’re going to go after funding mechanisms associated with progressive causes. That’s on the face of an official White House document.”
