Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has said that the Biden-era policies regarding the targeting of citizens over "concerning non-criminal behavior" have to end and referred to them as an abuse of power with respect to federal intelligence agencies.
On Monday, Gabbard told Just the News that former President Joe Biden's efforts to investigate "domestic terrorism" included the weaponization of the FBI "against everyday Americans whose ‘offense’ was supporting President Trump or daring to disagree with or oppose their policies."
"To ensure transparency and accountability, I declassified and released the document, so Americans could see the truth about the Biden Administration's weaponization and politicization of our government against Americans. This abuse of power that violates our God-given freedoms and civil liberties must end," Gabbard added.
A 2021 memo that had been drafted by the Biden administration to counter domestic terrorism was declassified by Gabbard earlier in April, and it revealed that the FBI and other federal agencies were able to open probes into Americans if any agent believed that they were involved in "concerning non-criminal behavior." This came before parents at school board meetings and Catholics were probed by federal agencies under Biden's presidency.
The memo stated that the government would "enhance public understanding of the role of Federal law enforcement in responding to incidents of concerning non-criminal behavior," which is a bullet point under the memo's section titled: "Prevent Domestic Terrorism Recruitment and Mobilization to Violence."
The FBI and other federal agencies have long been required to have what is referred to as a "predicate" in order to open an investigation into American citizens. Before Biden's term in office, an investigation's predicate had to have "an articulable factual basis" that "reasonably indicates" that an individual is about to engage in crime or is a threat to national security. This standard had been changed under Biden's term, according to the outlet.
Dr. John Lott, the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former official from the DOJ, told reporters, “In June 2021 the Biden administration put out its plan for dealing with domestic terrorists. The one that they put out at that time talked about how they were going after criminal activity. And of course, everybody, anybody who's espousing violence or trying to or committing violence, one wants the government to get a handle on that."
"What Tulsi Gabbard declassified was the rest of the document that was there, and what was shocking to me is that the types of tools and responses that they have been making for people who are engaged in some type of violence actually applied to non-violent individuals, non-criminal activity that was there,” Lott added.
