Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump and his chief of staff Stephen Miller, reportedly suggests Miller's statement Thursday was a clue for ICE's next big target.
Bannon said that Trump and his administration would use the shooting at a Dallas ICE facility as "the hook to unleash law enforcement on liberal immigration groups by linking political violence to anti-ICE rhetoric. This is going to get ugly," according to Greg Sargent of The New Republic.
"Take all that together, and it’s likely the administration is gearing up to use this shooting—and other alleged violence against ICE—as a pretext to launch precisely that crackdown on the liberal-left," Sargent writes. "This would work as follows: The administration would seek to investigate liberal or left-leaning groups—either criminally or through other agencies like the IRS—if their rhetoric or other activities can be somehow blamed for violence and hostility toward ICE."
Following the shooting in Dallas at an ICE facility that left one detainee dead and two others critically injured, Trump, Miller, and Vice President JD Vance all pushed to blame "anti-ICE" rhetoric on the "radical left" and "Antifa."
Trump posted this on Truth Social after the shooting:
"This violence is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis.'"
Trump's executive order designating Antifa a terrorist organization and reports that the FBI could label transgender people or groups “Nihilistic Violent Extremists" are "game changers," Bannon says.
"Miller specifically said Thursday in the Oval Office that 'calling ICE is 'authoritarian' is incitement to violence, I asked Bannon if he thinks this means law enforcement should/will now investigate groups who call ICE 'authoritarian.' 'Yes,' Bannon said. 'Miller is correct—more importantly he’s in charge,'" Sargent writes.
"This is a very historic and significant day," Miller said. "This is the first time in American history that there is an all-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism, to dismantle Antifa, to dismantle violence and terrorism."
Potential investigations and prosecutions against these groups are "designed to achieve Trump/Stephen Miller's goals" and that might not be easy for Trump, who is trying to lay out the groundwork for potential litigation.
“The threat to do it is itself a form of intimidation. It’s intended to chill lawful political expression," Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, told Sargent.
Sargent said of Miller's latest comment, "it was a signal" about the next target.