The Department of Justice appears to have deleted a study which documented the frequency of far-right violence in the U.S. from its website.
The removal was first reported by 404 Media. There is an archived listing of the study available online, but it no longer appears to be hosted on the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs page, where it was previously.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment on this article.
Why It Matters
The reported removal comes after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder and conservative activist, Charlie Kirk. Kirk, 31, was fatally shot during a speech at Utah Valley University on September 10 during his “American Comeback Tour.”
The murder and subsequent reaction from individuals across the political spectrum and media sphere have sparked a conversation about political rhetoric and free speech. On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that threats of violence are federal crimes under the U.S. Constitution, as part of a governmental crackdown on so-called hate speech.
The night Kirk was killed, President Donald Trump began an address to the nation, where he expressed horror at Kirk’s killing. The president pivoted to blame the “radical left” for the assassination, though the investigation was, and is ongoing, and at that point authorities had not identified a shooter.
“For years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop,” Trump said.
What To Know
The Office of Justice Programs currently has a message, titled “Notice,” on its page, which reads “The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance. During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
The study was titled, “What NIJ Research Tells About Domestic Terrorism.” The opening sentence reads, “Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States.” It continues, “In fact, the number of far right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violence extremism.”
The document said that “far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists,” since 1990. It said that this includes 227 events that took more than 520 lives and said that far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks, which took 78 lives.
It is not exactly clear why the study is not currently available on the website.
The notice posted on the website does make clear that there is currently a review about content underway.
What People Are Saying
Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox, at a press conference Friday: “This is certainly about the tragic death and assassination, political assassination of Charlie Kirk. But it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual. It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals.”
President Donald Trump said on Friday morning during an appearance on Fox News’ Fox & Friends: “I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime…The radicals on the left are the problem—and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country.”
Former President Barack Obama, during an interview at the Jefferson Educational Society in Pennsylvania on Tuesday: “We are certainly at an inflection point, not just around political violence, but there are a host of larger trends that we have to be concerned about. I think it is important for us, at the outset, to acknowledge that political violence is not new. It has happened at certain periods in our history, but it is something that it is anathema to what it means to be a democratic country.”
What’s Next