Department of Homeland Security exaggerated ‘antifa’ to downplay white supremacy: whistleblower
Homeland Security Image by Getty Images
By David Ian Klein September 10, 2020
Brian Murphy, an employee in the Department of Homeland Security, has accused the department’s leadership of retaliating against him for refusing to soft-pedal a report on white supremacy, according to a complaint filed Tuesday.
Ken Cuccinelli, a Trump appointee and deputy secretary of Homeland Security, allegedly ordered Murphy in March to change the section on white supremacy to make the threat seem less severe.
Cuccinelli also ordered Murphy to add in a section on left-wing groups to make a false equivalence Murphy said.
Further, Murphy said Cuccinelli and DHS secretary Chad Wolf instructed him to continually edit a section on antifa to keep it consistent with President Trump’s statements.
Trump has called the group agitators and anarchists, declared that he will be designating them a terrorist group, despite lacking the legal authority to do so.
Wolf demoted Murphy from Principal Deputy Under Secretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis to an assistant role within the DHS’s management division after reporting the incidents to the department’s inspector general.
Murphy considers the demotion clear retaliation.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
