"Terrorgram"

DOJ has been guns blazing for the last couple of weeks, indicting the terrorist group Hamas, would-be Russian election influencers, Chinese spies, and today, the leaders of a transnational terrorist group, Terrorgram, that is charged with soliciting both hate crimes and the murder of federal officials and with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

From the indictment: Terrorgram’s fake newspaper cover.

We’ll talk about the indictment in a minute, but I want to let y’all know about something I’m really excited about. Tomorrow night, during the debate, I’ll be hosting a special premium for paid subscribers, a live chat during the presidential debate. I’ll start the thread later tonight so you can bookmark it, but you’ll also get a reminder tomorrow morning. You’ll be able to interact with me and other Civil Discourse community members when the debate gets underway at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. And we’ll be joined by some special friends, too! If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, this is a great time to upgrade to a monthly or yearly subscription. One thing for sure, there will be NO sane-washing Donald Trump on Civil Discourse.

Back to the indictment. The Justice Department announced today that it had indicted a California man, Dallas Humber, and an Idaho man, Matthew Allison, in a 15-count indictment. The indictment was sealed until the defendants could both be arrested, which happened last Friday. That suggests that there were concerns they were flight risks or even posed a violent threat to law enforcement or the community if they learned about the indictment before they were in custody. They lead the Terrorgram Collective, which the indictment describes as a transnational terrorist group.

In a press release, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, “Today’s arrests are a warning that committing hate-fueled crimes in the darkest corners of the internet will not hide you, and soliciting terrorist attacks from behind a screen will not protect you. The United States Department of Justice will find you, and we will hold you accountable.”

Kristen Clarke heads DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which is prosecuting the case along with the National Security Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Colorado. Today, Assistant Attorney General Clarke directly addressed a new evolution in civil rights violations: hate crimes, committed on or amplified by digital messaging platforms, are on the rise. She said, “This indictment charges the leaders of a transnational terrorist group with several civil rights violations, including soliciting others to engage in hate crimes and terrorist attacks against Black, immigrant, LGBT, and Jewish people. Make no mistake, as hate groups turn to online platforms, the federal government is adapting and responding to protect vulnerable communities.”

Terrorgram Collective is a transnational terrorist group that operates on the digital messaging platform Telegram, where it promotes white supremacist accelerationism, an ideology centered on the belief that the white race is superior; that society is irreparably corrupt and cannot be saved by political action; and that violence and terrorism are necessary to ignite a race war and accelerate the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate. 

The indictment says Humber and Allison:

• Assisted with the creation and distribution of Terrorgram videos and other publications that provide very specific, detailed guidance for carrying out crimes. They had names like “The Hard Reset,” “White Terror,” and “The List.”

• Solicited Terrorgram users to “commit bias-motivated attacks against racial enemies and terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure,” and become “Saints” if they committed an attack that furthered “white supremacists acceleration.”

• Celebrated attacks committed by white supremacists and created a hit list of “high-value targets” for assassination. The hit list included U.S. federal, state, and local officials, as well as leaders of private companies and non-governmental organizations, many of whom were targeted because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

The type of attacks the two encouraged their followers to commit focused on people Terrorgram deemed enemies of the white race. They believe that terrorist attacks on government infrastructure—government buildings and energy facilities—would ignite a race war and help accelerate the collapse of our country. Along a similar vein, they encouraged attacks on politicians and government officials because they believed their murders would sow chaos and accelerate the government’s downfall.

Their followers carried out at least three attacks:

• A shooting of three people, two of whom died, outside of an LGBT bar in Slovakia;

• An attack that was planned on energy facilities in New Jersey; and

• The stabbing of five people near a mosque in Turkey.

Humber and Allison are charged with 15 separate crimes, including conspiracy, soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, doxing federal officials, making threatening communications, distributing bomb-making instructions, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The indictment lays out the way they targeted and motivated other people to commit hate crimes in frightening detail.

The details are chilling. In the hate crimes solicitation charges, the indictment specifies that the two men targeted Black people, white people associated with Black people, who they considered “race traitors,” Jews, non-white immigrants, and LGBTQ people. Among the targets the defendants selected for followers to murder were a U.S. Senator, a federal judge, and a former U.S. Attorney. It appears that federal authorities were onto the two’s activities early on and were able to insert undercover agents and other covert personnel into the schemes to ensure no one was actually hurt. In other words, we got lucky because of the hard work of law enforcement. Bringing prosecutions like this is incredibly important, not only to take these two dangerous men off the streets but also to deter others who may have thought they could get away with crimes like these behind the mask of anonymity available online but are now learning the dark web doesn’t give them the protection they thought it did. If convicted of all charges, Humber and Allison each face a maximum penalty of 220 years in prison.

A sobering indictment today and a good reason to be deeply grateful to the men and women in law enforcement who keep us safe. You can read the indictment here.

This indictment comes as Donald Trump is threatening to imprison his enemies. Politicians, but also people who run elections across the country and Americans who donate to candidates—presumably those Trump doesn’t like. He has threatened lawyers, and specifically Jack Smith. It is not a long path from these kinds of threats to the more violent ones charged by the Justice Department today.

I hope I’ll see you in the debate chat tomorrow night!

We’re in this together,

Joyce