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.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
