Department's concerns

DHS is concerned about Trump reinstatement conspiracy theory, top official says

DHS's top counterterrorism official told members of Congress about the department's concerns in a private briefing.

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN

The conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will be reinstated as president in August has sparked concerns at the Department of Homeland Security, a top official there told members of Congress on Wednesday.

The exchange came in a members-only briefing that John Cohen, the department’s top counterterrorism official, gave to the House Committee on Homeland Security. Three people familiar with the briefing described it to POLITICO. They requested anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

In the briefing, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) asked Cohen how DHS is following the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, as well as the way that discourse can fuel violence. She specifically brought up the conspiracy theory claiming Trump will be reinstated as president in August — a theory Trump himself has reportedly promoted.

Cohen replied that DHS is not aware of any specific, credible threats of violence linked to the conspiracy theory about Trump being reinstated. But he added that DHS is following discussion of the topic online among extremist communities. And he said department officials are highly concerned about it because it fuels the false narrative that the election was rigged — a narrative that may trigger a violent response from extremists.

The briefing’s topic was domestic terrorism. But Cohen also fielded a significant number of questions from members about violent crime, which has surged in 2020 and 2021. Cohen said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has directed officials there to look at factors fueling the violence that fall in the department’s mission. And earlier this week, the Biden administration rolled out a strategy to combat violent crime.

Conspiracy theorists –– notably including Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate who appears frequently in commercials on Fox News — have claimed in recent months that Trump will be reinstated as president in August, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and National Review reported earlier this month that Trump himself has told acquaintances he expects to be reinstated as president by the end of the summer. Lindell told The Daily Beast that Trump probably reached that conclusion because he has been promoting it. Commentator Charlie Sykes wrote for MSNBC that the August date is “based on guesswork and conspiratorial theories tied to nonexistent election fraud in Arizona and a delusional hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate the election.”

“If Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it publicly,” Lindell said.

And Sidney Powell, who did legal work for Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election results, told a QAnon conference earlier this year that he “can simply be reinstated.”

A Morning Consult/POLITICO survey from earlier this month showed that almost one-third of Republican voters have bought into the conspiracy theory. It traffics in the same themes of election-rigging that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Republican members of Congress blocked an effort to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate that attack. So this morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she will set up a select committee to probe the event.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has made combating domestic terrorism a priority. The White House released a strategy document earlier this month detailing their approach to the problem. And the Department of Homeland Security has set up a dedicated team of intelligence analysts focused exclusively on the topic. But the work has generated concerns among civil liberties advocates, who say they worry about expanded government surveillance of activity the First Amendment protects — along with potential disparate impacts on marginalized communities.