Two Florida lawmakers are among a group of Republicans demanding to know why the Biden administration is likening Christian groups and conservative media to Nazis.
The Free Press reported last week that the Department of Homeland Security gave the University of Dayton’s Human Rights Center a $352,109 grant to study domestic terrorism.
The school produced a report that lumped groups like the National Rifle Association, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Fox News, the Heritage Foundation, Breitbart News, and the Republican National Committee in with the Nazis.
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In response to the report, which the conservative Media Research Center first publicized, GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona fired off a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the grant and the program.
The letter was also signed by Florida Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Anna Paulina Luna.
“Under your leadership, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly targeted conservative Americans for lawfully expressing their First Amendment rights. The Constitution prohibits the federal government from suppressing the free speech of Americans, by any means, including the use of third parties to engage in unconstitutional attacks on free speech,” Biggs wrote.
“But this unlawful federal speech regulatory regime continues to be the norm under the Biden Administration.”
Biggs noted that the DHS is providing grants to groups that openly “demonize and equate mainstream conservatism with domestic terrorism.”
“It is your duty to stop this un-American politically motivated targeting of ideas,” Biggs added.
“Instead, your DHS has reimagined this program to prioritize combatting domestic radicalization and has awarded federal grants to organizations that view conservative beliefs as radicalization in need of suppression.”
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Biggs pointed out that a speaker who addressed the Dayton program, University of Cincinnati researcher Michael Loadenthal, called a graphic linking the above groups and others to Nazis was an “accurate depiction of the ‘modern far-right’ and extremism in America.”
Loadenthal said this while being a member of the group that became Antifa.
“Instead of targeting groups that promote and amplify civil unrest and racial violence like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, the University of Dayton seminars are led by these anarchist extremists,” Biggs wrote.
“DHS should under no circumstances award grants relating to combatting domestic radicalization to organizations and municipalities that lack the ability to discern between speech and legitimate political decisions they disagree with and domestic terrorism. It is especially concerning that you called these grants a ‘priority…of the highest performance.’”
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Biggs and the other lawmakers demanded that Mayorkas explain the purpose of these grants.
Among the answers they seek, they want to know if Mayorkas considers organizations like the Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Breitbart News, Christian Broadcasting Network, Turning Point USA, PragerU, the NRA, and the RNC “support, promote, or otherwise be engaged in domestic violent extremism.”
They also asked if DHS views Antifa as a “domestic extremist group,” how the agency defines “radicalization,” and does it consider radicalization itself unlawful.
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