Internal documents reveal how Trump is inventing terrorism at home - and how boundaries are shifting in Germany

A confidential FBI intelligence report prepared in early October reveals how Donald Trump is redefining the concept of domestic security - as a weapon against his own population. Protest is terrorism. The mere participation in a demonstration against ICE, against the president, against the dismantling of democratic institutions - all this, the document suggests, could serve as a cover for attacks. The internal warning was signed by those who have long been seen as key figures in Trump’s new security ideology: FBI Director Kash Patel and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

The memo, marked as “restricted” and dated October 1, 2025, bears the unremarkable title “Domestic Violent Extremists Pose Increased Threat of Violence to ICE Facilities and Personnel.” But behind this bureaucratic phrasing lies a dangerous idea: that the constitutional right to assemble itself is being redefined as a security threat. The agency refers to “Domestic Violent Extremists,” or DVEs - a term that in Trump’s America can now mean anyone who carries banners instead of weapons.

A confidential FBI intelligence report from October 1, 2025, prepared jointly with the Department of Homeland Security, claims that so-called “Domestic Violent Extremists” pose a growing threat to ICE facilities. As evidence, the document cites two attacks in Texas - including the case of 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, who shot three ICE detainees in Dallas before killing himself. Not a single ICE officer was killed. Nevertheless, the report warns that the perpetrators had “benefited from First Amendment-protected activities” - a formulation that indirectly links demonstrations with terrorism and serves as the foundation for Trump’s NSPM-7 strategy to expand the fight against “domestic extremism” to political opposition.

See our article: “Blood at the Border: The Attack on the ICE Facility in Dallas That Destroyed Lives and Inflamed a Nation” at https://kaizen-blog.org/en/blut-an-der-grenze-der-angriff-auf-die-ice-einrichtung-in-dallas-der-leben-zerstoerte-und-eine-nation-entflammte/

Particularly in the crosshairs is the “No Kings” protest, a broad citizens’ movement that emerged in April as a reaction to Trump’s dictatorial style of governance. What began as an ironic response to the pomp of a president who styled himself as a monarch grew within weeks into a nationwide democracy movement with millions of participants - supported by organizations such as Indivisible, MoveOn, and Public Citizen. But what sounded like pluralistic protest in the streets was declared terrorism in the halls of power.

In the White House, words now echo that one knows from authoritarian states. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called it a “Hate America Rally.” Tom Emmer, the Republican majority whip, described the demonstrations as the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party. Even Steve Scalise, usually a representative of calculated silence, adopted the slogan. Those who downplayed the January 6 insurrection now discover in peaceful protest the greatest threat to the nation. The shift in language is not accidental. It is part of a strategy. Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 - or NSPM-7 - has required all federal agencies since the summer to “systematically combat domestic terrorism.” What sounds harmless is, in practice, alarmingly broad. The Department of Justice under Pam Bondi followed in September with a directive titled “Ending Political Violence Against ICE,” classifying protests, blockades, or even critical statements as potential support for violence. Two days later, the confidential FBI intelligence report that has now become public was released.

The second part of the confidential FBI-DHS report describes an attack on July 4, 2025, on the ICE Prairieland Detention Center in Texas, in which a police officer was shot in the neck. According to the report, the perpetrators used encrypted communication channels, launched fireworks and graffiti as distractions, and planned the attack near a local meeting point. A total of 20 people were later arrested - but again, one has to ask where there is any connection to demonstrations, other than in Trump’s imagination. Nevertheless, the report claims that since June, “small groups of perpetrators” have “exploited” large, legal protests in Los Angeles and Oregon to commit acts of violence. As evidence, it cites property damage at ICE facilities and clashes with police. In its outlook, the FBI warns that such attacks could increase and that perpetrators are preparing through encrypted apps and online research - a justification that makes any digital, journalistic, or political activity potentially criminalizable.

The Bureau links the two violent acts in Texas with an alleged connection to anti-ICE demonstrations. In reality, these are isolated incidents - tragic, but hardly sufficient to justify a nationwide surveillance campaign. In July and September, “two targeted, pre-planned attacks on ICE personnel and facilities” had taken place, the report says. Four deaths were reported. Not a word, however, that none of the dead were ICE employees.

In the first case of the internal report, as outlined above, it was Joshua Jahn, a 29-year-old Texan who opened fire on an ICE building in Dallas in September, killing two detainees, wounding another, and then taking his own life. The bullets bore the engraving “anti-ICE” - a detail that FBI chief Patel quickly spread on social media. Major media outlets adopted the term “anti-ICE terrorist.” But friends, relatives of the perpetrator, and our own research paint a different picture: Jahn, they say, was an apolitical troll driven by a desire for chaos, not ideology. His brother later spoke of a “random shooting.” (https://kaizen-blog.org/en/blut-an-der-grenze-der-angriff-auf-die-ice-einrichtung-in-dallas-der-leben-zerstoerte-und-eine-nation-entflammte/)

The second case, which the intelligence report cites as evidence of a growing “extremist movement,” concerns the attack on the Prairieland Detention Center in July. A group of masked assailants shot at officers, one of whom was hit in the neck. Investigators found slogans at the scene such as “FIGHT ICE TERROR” and “RESIST FASCISM.” Yet again, no connection to a demonstration, none to the “No Kings” protests. The indictment mentions neither Antifa nor any political networks.

Nevertheless, the report concludes that “domestic violent extremists” have “exploited large, legal protests” in California and Oregon to commit violence. The reference remains vague, the evidence absent. In reality, there have been occasional instances of vandalism and minor scuffles in Portland and Eugene - but not a single ICE employee has been killed this year. The only serious injury is that of the officer in Texas. This does not stop the authorities from constructing a line of argument: protest as the breeding ground of terror.

That the government is amplifying this rhetoric now is no coincidence. Since the murder of Charlie Kirk - an event that Trump publicly called “our 9/11 of the Left” - a climate of moral hysteria has prevailed. Every form of political opposition is placed under suspicion. In this atmosphere, the equation of dissent with danger flourishes. What is emerging is a systematic reconstruction of the security architecture. NSPM-7 shifts the boundary between legitimate threat prevention and ideological repression. When the FBI intelligence report claims that attackers had “benefited from First Amendment-protected activities,” it is saying nothing less than that the constitutional right to free expression itself has been redefined as a vulnerability.

In Washington, this language has become the new normal. Out of concern for security grows an instrument of control. The domestic intelligence service, once created to protect democracy, is now being used to discipline it. The “No Kings” protest on October 18 thus stood not only for resistance against a president who places himself above the law. It also stood for a test of American freedom. For when every crowd is declared a potential threat, what remains of the public sphere is little more than the aftersound of fear. In Trump’s second term, the state has learned to turn the language of terror inward. Where once slogans like “War on Terror” prevailed, it is now “War on Protest.” It is a quiet, bureaucratically phrased war against those who refuse to remain silent. A war that sells itself as defense - and in truth undermines the foundation of the republic. Those who cry “No Kings” these days are not shouting against a man but against a system that has learned to confuse democracy with distrust. And perhaps that is the true danger for those who rule - that people remember to whom power in a republic really belongs.

Even in Germany, quiet but noticeable shifts can be observed - barely perceptible in everyday life, yet unmistakable to those who listen to the language of power. What is already happening openly in the United States under NSPM-7 is taking shape here in an administrative tone and with legal precision: the transition from protection to control. Police laws that allow access based on suspicion; constitutional protection reports that classify activists as “left-wing extremist influenced”; terms such as “climate RAF” or “threat actor” that smuggle the state of emergency into the vocabulary of daily life. The pattern is always the same - the state declares those who remind it of its promises to be the risk.

What was once conceived as the protective wall of democracy is slowly becoming its veil - transparent enough to preserve the illusion of freedom, opaque enough to conceal its boundaries. When protest becomes disruption, loyalty becomes virtue, and public dissent turns into a file in the register of internal security. It is not a sudden rupture but a gradual transformation - a bureaucratically domesticated liberalism that manages its own fear of freedom. Germany remains a state under the rule of law - for now. Yet the line between stability and stagnation no longer runs along the laws themselves, but along the courage to defend them against the current.