Delayed Homeland Security Report Warns of ‘Lethal’ White SupremacyAn annual assessment that a whistle-blower said was withheld for months did not hold back on the threat from violent extremists and tagged Russia as the primary source of disinformation.(...) The
threat assessment highlighted white supremacists as the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years and Russia as the primary threat to spreading disinformation.
“I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years,” Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security, wrote in the foreward to the assessment. The threat report also stated that “Russia is the likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation within the homeland.”
The agency also highlighted Iran and China’s cyberwarfare abilities and warned of a potential surge in migration to the southwest border.
The delayed release of the report has been a point of scrutiny for a department that has faced consistent accusations of morphing into a tool for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. After the department singled out domestic terrorists and specifically white supremacists in a terrorism framework in September 2019, the agency’s leadership committed to releasing a follow-up assessment to the threat as well as a blueprint to confront it within months. It took far longer.
