Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s appearance before a Senate hearing on political violence this week resurfaced inconvenient remarks for a witness called by Republicans intent on painting rising political violence as a left-wing problem.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) read back Wolf’s Senate testimony from five years ago.
“White supremacist extremists, from a lethality standpoint over the last two years … are certainly the most persistent and lethal threat, when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” Wolf said at the time.
On Tuesday, before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Wolff offered a strikingly different assessment.
“The increase in politically motivated violence over the last several years has been driven largely by radical, left-wing extremist groups and individuals that believe violence is a legitimate means to achieve political goals,” Wolf testified.
Wolf is now executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute. Founded in 2021 and closely aligned with Trump, former leaders include Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a statement to Raw Story, Wolf did not disavow his 2020 assessment on white supremacist violence, but said: “America has experienced a historic rise in left-wing violence, especially following President Trump’s second election victory.”
At the time of Wolf’s September 2020 hearing, the U.S. had experienced a series of mass shootings by white supremacists, including Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people, mostly Latinos, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
Both killers echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric depicting immigrants and refugees as an “invasion” or “invaders.”
U.S. counterterrorism officials also took note of the 2019 massacre carried out by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Crusius cited Tarrant as an inspiration. So did Payton Gendron, who killed 10 African Americans at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2022.
Tarrant’s attack catalyzed the emergence of the term “saints” among white supremacists to glorify terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department is currently prosecuting three Terrorgram leaders on terrorism-related charges.
“White supremacist violence is clearly not the primary threat facing our country today,” Wolf told Raw Story. “All you have to do is look at the data, which has changed significantly in the last five years.”
Wolf cited incidents often mentioned by the administration and allies to make the case that political violence now emanates from the left: the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two attempts on Trump’s life, the attempted assassination of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and attacks on centers that offer an alternative to abortion services.
He did not cite the murder of Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by an abortion opponent; a recent death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) by a Jan. 6 rioter; or the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), by a QAnon follower.
Nor did Wolf mention some 1,500 individuals pardoned by President Trump over the Jan. 6 assault on Congress.
William Braniff, a former director of DHS’ Center for Prevention Programs under President Joe Biden testified alongside Wolf.
Braniff agreed that violent incidents are on the rise. But he told the subcommittee, “Violent events do not fit neatly into any one ideological category.”
Braniff noted that DHS contracted with the University of Maryland in 2005 to create a global terrorism database, by congressional mandate. In March, the Trump administration canceled funding.
Drawing on the database, Braniff said: “This year, compared to last year, terrorism events are up 67 percent. Fatalities are up nearly 150 percent. Americans are dying from ISIS-inspired, white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-government, anti-vax, anti-law enforcement and nihilistic attacks.”
‘Black Lives Matter and antifa riots’
In 2020, when Wolf flagged white supremacist violence, he was overseeing DHS as the first Trump administration deployed federal agents against protesters in Portland, Ore., a harbinger of the current standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city.
On Tuesday, Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cited rioting related to protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, a familiar Republican talking point.
“There is an epidemic of politically motivated violence,” Cruz said. “And the politically motivated violence in this country is overwhelmingly emanating from the left. We saw that during the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots across the country, as cities across America burned.”
Schmitt complained that some studies of political violence “systematically ignore antifa and Black Lives Matter riots.”
Michael Knowles, a podcast host at the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, complained in testimony that “the Black Lives Matter riots, overtly leftist demonstrations that left dozens of people dead … fail to show up on registers of left-wing political violence.”
Cruz, Schmitt and Knowles did not delve into who was responsible for such violence. The data suggests they were presenting an incomplete picture.
Drawing on data provided by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and multiple news reports, Raw Story counted 34 deaths plausibly linked to racial justice protests and unrest in 2020, not counting the police killings that sparked protests. Of those, three appear to involve perpetrators directly linked to Black Lives Matter, “antifa” or their supporters.
On May 28, 2020, the second night of rioting in Minneapolis, rioters set fire to a pawnshop. The charred remains of 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stewart Jr. were found in the ruins. Montez Terriel Lee was convicted of arson and sentenced to a decade in prison.
The following month, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. was shot inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee that sped through an area of Seattle known as the CHAZ — Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — and occupied by protesters. No charges have been brought, but bystander video appears to implicate an activist security team patrolling amid fears of a right-wing attack.
In late August 2020, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was fatally shot in Portland, Ore. Michael Reinoehl, the self-described “antifa” shooter, claimed self-defense. Before he could be apprehended, Reinoehl was killed by federal agents, an event President Trump described as “retribution.”
Danielson’s death is the only politically motivated homicide in the U.S. linked to an identified antifascist in the past quarter-century.
In contrast, one study found that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists killed at least 329 between 1994 and 2020.
The circumstances of Danielson’s shooting remain unclear. As noted by ACLED, Trump supporters were staging a car caravan through downtown Portland, and some right-wingers “sprayed pepper spray and shot paintball guns at counter-demonstrators rallying in support of the BLM movement and against police brutality, as well as journalists.”
The entry also notes video showing right-wing demonstrators driving vehicles through left-wing counter-demonstrators attempting to block the streets.
‘Might shoot looters’
Eight other deaths in 2020 could be linked to racial justice protests, if not directly.
In some, civilian bystanders were killed by criminals who appeared to be exploiting chaos. Victims include David Dorn, a retired police captain in St. Louis whose widow spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention; Chris Beaty, a former college football player murdered in Indianapolis while assisting a woman being mugged; and Marvin Francois, a photographer killed in a robbery while leaving a protest in Kansas City.
Among the most shocking deaths associated with the 2020 protests is that of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, shot by an alleged Bloods gang member manning a barricade in the area where Rayshard Brooks was killed by Atlanta police. Julian Conley was convicted of murder and other offenses, and sentenced to life in prison.
Kyle Rittenhouse mugshot. (Kenosha County Sheriff's office)
But in at least 23 cases — roughly two thirds — Raw Story found that perpetrators of unrest-related deaths were not linked to Black Lives Matter, antifa or their supporters. They include five people killed by police, one killed by the National Guard, others killed by motorists and shopkeepers, a man with severe mental illness, and a security guard for a news crew.
In one example, Steven Carillo, an airman active in the far-right Boogaloo movement, took advantage of unrest after Floyd’s death to murder David Patrick Underwood, a federal security officer guarding the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., and Damon Gutzwiler, a Santa Cruz County deputy sheriff attempting to serve a warrant.
Raw Story’s analysis tallied 11 Black Lives Matter protesters killed: roughly equal to the number of unaffiliated civilians.
Two — Summer Taylor and Robert Forbes — were struck by vehicles. Barry Perkins III was dragged by a tractor-trailer. Others, including James Scurlock and Italia Impinto, were shot.
Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran marching with BLM protesters in Austin, Texas on July 25, 2020, was fatally shot by Daniel Perry, a former soldier who reportedly searched for locations of protesters and told a friend he “might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” Perry was convicted of murder, then pardoned by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Perhaps most memorably, Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two BLM supporters during unrest in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. He was acquitted on all charges.
