While left hammers him for racism, Trump becomes 1st POTUS to declare white supremacist group 'terrorists'

The Trump administration on Monday made anti-terrorism history by designating a Russia-based far-right group and its leaders as global terrorists. The action marked the first time that a classification often used for Islamic terrorists has been applied to a white supremacist group. The action came despite countless examples of the left and the establishment media…

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The Trump administration on Monday made anti-terrorism history by designating a Russia-based far-right group and its leaders as global terrorists.

The action marked the first time that a classification often used for Islamic terrorists has been applied to a white supremacist group.

The action came despite countless examples of the left and the establishment media referring to President Donald Trump as a racist.

For example, when Trump used the phrase "Chinese virus" to describe the coronavirus -- which originated in Wuhan, China -- NBC News quoted New York state Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, who represents the Chinatown area of New York City, as saying that Trump is "fueling the flames of racism with all of his comments."

Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House minority whip, has told Axios that Trump is a racist who has hired white supremacists, and that America “could very well go the way of Germany in the 1930s."

However, in announcing that the Russian Imperial Movement and its top leaders were being labeled "specially designated global terrorists," a State Department official said the president has sent a message that white supremacism will not be tolerated.

"Today’s designations send an unmistakable message that the United States will not hesitate to use our sanctions authorities aggressively, and that we are prepared to target any foreign terrorist group, regardless of ideology, that threatens our citizens, our interests abroad or our allies," Ambassador Nathan Sales, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, said during a Monday news briefing.

"These designations are unprecedented," Sales said. "This is the first time the United States has ever designated foreign white supremacist terrorists, illustrating how seriously this administration takes the threat. We are taking actions that no previous administration has taken to counter this threat."

The State Department said the RIM was added to the list because it runs two paramilitary training camps in St. Petersburg, Russia, that attract neo-Nazis from around the world.

“This group has innocent blood on its hands,” Sales said.

The State Department’s action means the group cannot access any American property or assets.

Americans also cannot conduct financial dealings with the group.

"[W]e are aware of public reports that RIM has reached out to Americans or even travel to the United States to reach out to Americans," Sales said. "We’re not in a position to comment on whether or not those reports are accurate, but I can tell you that, as a general matter, any foreign terrorist group, if it seeks to make common cause with Americans, is a grave concern to the United States, a grave concern to the State Department, and we will not hesitate to aggressively use our authorities to counter such groups."

Three of the group’s leaders -- Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov -- were officially designated as terrorists.

Mary McCord, a former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said the Trump administration's action was significant.

“It is important,” she told The New York Times. “Far-right extremist causes, in particular white supremacy and white nationalism, have become more international. It is appropriate for the State Department to have been scrutinizing whether there are organizations that meet the criteria for that designation because with it, the organization becomes poison in terms of doing business with it or providing funds, goods or services to it.”

Connections between domestic and foreign terror groups are growing, some commentators said.

“Every counterterrorism professional I speak to in the federal government and overseas feels like we are at the doorstep of another 9/11,” Elizabeth Neumann, a senior Department of Homeland Security official, said this year during a hearing on white supremacist terrorism, according to Foreign Policy. “Maybe not something that catastrophic in terms of the visual or the numbers but that we can see it building and we don’t quite know how to stop it.”

Sales said white supremacist extremism is international.

“The global white supremacist terrorist community is very much a transnational phenomenon,” he said. The man who carried out the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart last year later told investigators he was inspired by the Christchurch attacks on mosques in New Zealand -- representing “a bloody and grisly demonstration of how these networks interrelate with one another and inspire one another,” Sales added.

The U.S. wants Russia to join its crackdown.

"As for RIM and its relationship to the Russian government, we call on all partners, our allies in other countries around the world, to take actions commensurate with what we have taken today," Sales said.

"We encourage Russia, we encourage other countries to use domestic legal authorities available to them to designate this group, to deny it the ability to travel, and to cut off its access to the international financial system," he said. "[W]e encourage the Russian Federation to live up to the commitments it has made to countering terrorism. We have identified this group as a terrorist organization and we encourage all partners around the world, including the Russian government, to take this threat as seriously as we take it."

Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia and Eurasia, said that is not likely.

“[T]hey are not legally sanctioned and cannot be really considered Kremlin proxies either,” he told Foreign Policy. “It’s more of an adversarial symbiosis. Under the watchful eye of the [Russian] secret services, many of these extremist groups are given a great deal of latitude to interact with neo-Nazi and far-right extremist groups in the West -- but only as long as they don’t cause too much trouble in Russia.”

During his briefing, Sales said fighting white supremacist terrorism is "a top priority for the Trump administration.

"After the El Paso attack, President Trump said, 'In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated,'" Sales said. "This administration isn’t just talking the talk. We’re also walking the walk. We’re taking decisive actions to counter this threat."

However, Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden has not been shy about using the El Paso shooting to link Trump to white supremacists.

"How far is it from Trump saying this is an invasion to the shooter in El Paso declaring, quote, 'this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas?' How far apart are those comments," Biden said, according to ABC News. "I don't think it's that far at all. It's both clear language and in code. This president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation."

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post While left hammers him for racism, Trump becomes 1st POTUS to declare white supremacist group 'terrorists' appeared first on WND.