DOJ deletes report on far-right violence after Kirk assassination • FRANCE 24 English

DOJ deletes report on far-right violence after Kirk assassination • FRANCE 24 English

Verica Bell is in the studio with me. Hi Vica. Hi Yanka. So the United States Justice Department appears to have quietly removed a study about a far-right um extremist violence that is going on in the US from its own website just days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Tell us more. That is correct. The US Department of Justice deleted one of its own studies from its website. a study that concluded that far-right extremists had killed more Americans in fact than left-wing or radical Islamist extremists. Now, this was first reported by independent uh internet and technology journalists at 404 media. Um but in fact, it was first flagged by a PhD student by the name of Daniel Malma um who is studying online extremism. He had been monitoring the page and in fact he found that it had disappeared from the internet between the 12th and the 13th of September. So that’s just days after Charlie Kirk was shot by a gunman on the 10th of September. Um and he noted that the last date of accessibility for that uh study on the DOJ DOJ website was the 12th of September. Now according to Malma and uh 404 media after it was deleted from the website. This is the uh immediate re uh uh redirection from the DOJ website. This was the page. Uh a notice appeared on it saying that it is currently reviewing its website and materials in accordance with recent executive orders and related guidance. Since then, however, it has in fact been updated again to a single sentence. Let’s take a look. Here it is. The requested page could not be found. That is all there is now on on that single page. Now if we want to talk a little bit about that study in question, the vanish study was titled what NIJJ research. So that’s National Institute of Justice Research tells us about domestic terrorism. It is only available now to view Yinka on this page way back machine which is in fact an internet archive. Well, the timing of that removal is extremely interesting there, isn’t it, Vica? What’s also noticeable is that the scrubbed report seems to directly contradict recent statements made by the Trump administration. Yes, you could say that the scrubbed report published in January 2024. It spans three decades of research and literally in its opening paragraph, its opening words are here. Uh since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists. They’ve even included figures here saying that includes 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideolog ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives. As you said, this is a stark contrast to the recent comments uh we have been hearing from uh Trump and Trump’s officials in the White House. Um, Trump and his officials have in fact been pointing the finger at left-wing extremism linked to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This week, Trump himself made several statements about the left. He said, quote, “The radical left causes tremendous violence, and they seem to do it in a bigger way.” So, that directly contradicts the findings of that study uh we saw there. Now, just days ago, he doubled down on that stance one more time. Now, let’s take a listen exactly to what he said. Well, the problem is on the left. When you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right, like some people like to say on the right. The problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitators, uh, the the you look at the the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that’s the left. That’s not the right. So, doubling down on his stance against what he calls the radical left. Again, this week, the White House has said it would crack down on what it has called a vast domestic terror movement. Um, Vice President JD Vance has particularly spoken out um against uh a what he alleges to be a left-wing um extremist movement, and he says that that is directly what helped lead to Charlie Kirk’s killing. Now I just want to note that whilst the in investigation into the death of Charlie Kirk is ongoing um the there hasn’t been any evidence presented by prosecutors thus far uh linking his suspected shooter Tyler Robinson to any such groups or any connection made thus far. But overall let’s return to the facts and the facts remain as follows. The DOJ did uh quietly remove from its website a study that uh detailed the scale and the figures of right-wing extremism in the US. The White House has indeed this week pledged a crackdown on what it calls the radical left. Um and Yinka, from what I can see, the DOJ has not responded to any media requests or inquiries about why or for what reason it has deleted that page on its website. So that is the fact and that is what we know thus far about this.

A 2024 US Department of Justice study was scrubbed from the department’s website just days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The report found that far-right extremism had caused “far more” deaths in the US than attacks by left-wing or radical Islamist groups. Its findings stand in stark contrast to recent statements from the Trump administration, which have blamed “the radical left” for Kirk’s killing. Vedika Bahl explains in this edition of Truth or Fake.
#DOJ #charliekirk #donaldtrump

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