By Shayan Sardarizadeh & Kayleen Devlin
Copyright bbc
This week, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) removed a study into political violence in America which concluded that far-right extremism outpaced “all other types of violent extremism”.
The BBC asked the DoJ why the study, published in 2024 by the department’s research agency, had been removed. It said it had “no comment”.
BBC Verify has reviewed five independent studies that have looked into politically motivated attacks in the US going back decades, all of which suggest there have been more cases of political violence in the US committed by people assigned a right-wing ideology by researchers than a left-wing one.
However, as there is no consistent or universal definition of “right” or “left” ideology, it is difficult to measure trends in political violence over time.
Professor Robert Pape, from the University of Chicago said that recent years have seen “historic highs in political assassinations and assassination attempts” – with both Republican and Democratic politicians targeted.
“What we see in our data on what happens when a political leader blames one side for the violence is it produces more support for political violence, not less,” he added.
Additional reporting by Mike Wendling, Matt Murphy and Lucy Gilder
