The Nation: “Last week, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblower told the press that agency officials had ordered him to downplay the threat of white supremacist terrorism. But a recent DHS intelligence assessment about physical threats to the 2020 election season identifies ‘white supremacist extremists’ as the foremost threat to the democratic process this year. The intelligence assessment, first referenced by Yahoo News and published in full by The Nation, was produced by the DHS’ Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) division. In an interview with The Nation, a former senior DHS I&A intelligence officer corroborated the whistleblower’s claims, describing the challenges he had faced to monitoring white supremacists under the Trump administration. ‘As soon as Trump came in, counterterrorism ended,’ the former intelligence officer said, pointing to the Trump administration’s decision to dissolve DHS’s domestic terrorism division.”

“Since then, DHS I&A’s focus has turned to trivial immigration matters like individuals overstaying their travel visas, he explained. ‘The only immigration we should be worried about is a nexus to terrorism, not student overstays and bullshit,’ the former intelligence officer said. The assessment, dated August 17 of this year and marked for OFFICIAL USE ONLY, provides an overview of different threats to the election. Threats are said to include not just white supremacists but also individuals wary of the government’s Covid-19 restrictions, Second Amendment extremists, and confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. The report reads: ‘We continue to assess lone offender white supremacist extremists and other lone offender domestic terrorist actors with personalized ideologies, including those based on grievances against a target’s perceived actual political affiliation, policies, or worldview, pose the greatest threat of lethal violence.'”