Donald Trump‘s pick for Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, is already laying plans to criminalize “left-wing activist groups” like Habitat for Humanity, revoking the grants received under the Biden administration and designating their harmless activities as “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Trump has made no secret of his intention to wage a war against activist groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and now that the entire administrative branch has turned into his little playground, with loyalists being appointed to head different bureaus and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency methodically removing any potential opposition to the MAGA agendas within the federal workforce, it’s safe to say that it will only be a matter of time before all these plans are enacted with force.
While many of them fall a little bit short of the nightmarish, dystopian scenarios laid out in Project 2025, of which many Trump aides and advisors are lead contributors, what has been taking place in the country over the past month under the umbrella of the law is nothing short of an unconstitutional push to turn the administrative branch into an authoritarian echo chamber, where Trump’s is the only voice of reason, backed by corporate tycoons like Elon Musk and their enormous wealth and influence.
If that seems to you like hyperbole, just look at what the FBI is planning to do to climate groups. According to a new filing revealed by Citibank, per The New Republic, halting the $20 billion in climate grants given out under Biden through the Environmental Protection Agency wasn’t enough for the Trump administration, and now Kash Patel’s FBI is moving to freeze bank accounts associated with climate groups like Habitat for Humanity, alleging that the activists are involved in “possible criminal violations.”
“The FBI has told Citibank that recipients of EPA climate grants are being considered as potentially liable for fraud. That is, the Trump administration wants to criminalize work on climate science and impacts,” wrote an account on X. “An incoming administration not only cancels federal grants but declares recipients as criminals. All these grantees applied under government calls FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, were reviewed and accepted. Trump wants to jail them.”
JUST IN: Citibank reveals in a court filing that it has been asked to freeze funds for a Biden-era climate program by:
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 12, 2025
-The FBI
-The EPA administrator
-The EPA IG
-Treasuryhttps://t.co/Pb4lJIw5zk
If Trump is finally going after the “enemies from within” that he repeatedly name-called during his campaign, then there’ll be no telling where the administration will draw the line in terms of whom to prosecute. We know that going after Antifa ever since the George Floyd protests has turned into an obsession for the president, but he recently called the student protests on college campuses “illegal” and referred to campaigners against Elon Musk’s Tesla as “domestic terrorists.”
As for how the new FBI director figures into these plans, Patel had previously expressed his wish to “wipe out” the department from within while appearing on a far-right podcast, and he’s made good on that promise since taking over from his predecessor, dispersing more than 1,500 staffers and agents from the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. across the country.
What he will do from here on out now that Team Trump has essentially re-structured the federal government is uncertain, but this new filing targeting climate groups gives us a pretty good idea.
Published: Mar 13, 2025 05:00 pm