EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
MRC Free Speech America, as part of its new Freedom of Information Act investigations, has learned how the Biden administration is weaponizing a government-funded anti-terrorism grant program in an effort to destroy conservatives, Christians and the Republican Party.
Under the Trump administration, the “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program” (TVTP) was used to prevent terrorism, but it was revamped under the Biden administration and renamed to provide funding for localities to combat “all forms of terrorism and targeted violence.” Instead of focusing on preventing actual violence and terrorism, the program is now being used to target the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other so-called training seminars as part of a coordinated effort to make America into a one-party system.
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The University of Dayton, one of several grantees, targeted groups including The Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Christian Broadcasting Network, Turning Point USA, PragerU, the National Rifle Association (NRA), Breitbart News, the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Republican National Committee.
The Department of Homeland Security awarded a total of 80 grants at the behest of embattled DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who called the program a “high priority” in an internal memo exclusively obtained by MRC Free Speech America. This anti-American program cost taxpayers just under $40 million, with each individual project receiving between $85,000 and $1.19 million.
DHS has resisted producing documents pursuant to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to date, but MRC Free Speech America has acquired scores of documents directly from DHS grant recipients and other related organizations revealing the true and nefarious nature of the Biden administration’s objectives. The findings are telling:
The University of Dayton PREVENTS-OH was among the most radical grantees within the TVTP “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives.” In Ohio, DHS awarded the University of Dayton $352,109 to establish the PREVENTS-OH program, which promised to “draw on the expertise of the University of Dayton faculty” to fight “domestic violence extremism and hate movements.” For example, a chart used by DHS and its grantee in a training program equates mainstream groups with militant neo-Nazis, including: The Heritage Foundation, Fox News, the National Rifle Association (NRA), Breitbart News, PragerU, Turning Point USA, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF) and the Republican National Committee, among others.
- The seminar also compared former President Donald Trump to Pol Pot and suggested Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might wish to start a second Holocaust.
- The PREVENTS-OH seminars (including one headlined by a DHS agent) feature lectures by University of Cincinnati Research Fellow Michael Loadenthal, a self-proclaimed member of Antifa whose Twitter feed is rife with posts celebrating acts of left–wing violence (often against police officers). Loadenthal used PREVENTS-OH to explain in detail how to create dummy accounts on free speech social media platforms like Telegram, Gab and Rumble in order to “destabilize” political movements. “A lot of things we’re doing are illegal,” he boasted in the lecture. “A lot of it involves breaking the law,” he continued.
By Luis Cornelio and Tim Kilcullen
