Inside Pam Bondi’s Domestic Extremist Blueprint: How NSPM-7 Turns Dissent Into a National Security Target

A leaked memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi quietly instructs the FBI to build a federal list of extremist “groups or entities” and their networks across the United States. The language is clinical.

There is no press conference in this story.

What you have instead is a seven page memorandum on Department of Justice letterhead, dated December 4, 2025, from Attorney General Pam Bondi to “all federal prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, [and] grant-making components.” The subject line is clinical:

“Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”

On its face, it looks like standard national security bureaucracy. References to statutes. Footnotes. Citations to DHS press releases and NBC articles.

Underneath that, the memo quietly does five things at once:

It stretches the label “domestic terrorism” around a wide band of left-leaning political ideology.

It directs the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Forces to mine five years of political events for targets.

It tells prosecutors to use the heaviest federal tools available, from RICO to seditious conspiracy.

It orders the FBI to compile a list of groups and entities that meet this expanded definition, with rolling reports every 30 days.

It builds an incentive structure of grants, tips, and cash rewards to pull local police and informants into the project.

This is not just an interpretation of Trump’s NSPM-7 directive. It is the war plan for carrying it out.

1. How Bondi Redefines “Domestic Terrorism”

The memo begins by citing the statutory definition of domestic terrorism in 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5). On paper, that definition is narrow:

Criminal conduct inside the United States that involves acts dangerous to human life, intended to intimidate civilians or influence government policy through coercion, mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.

Then Bondi pivots.

She folds into that same category a list of activities that look much more like protest and civil disobedience:

“organized doxing of law enforcement, mass rioting and destruction in our cities, violent efforts to shut down immigration enforcement, [and] targeting of public officials or other political actors.”

She frames these acts as part of “rampant criminal conduct rising to the level of domestic terrorism” that has been “tolerated” for too long.

And then she credits “certain Antifa-aligned extremists” whose “animating principle” is adherence to “extreme viewpoints” on immigration, gender, and patriotism.

This is the first sleight of hand.

Instead of defining domestic terrorism by conduct alone, the memo ties the threat to ideology. It tells federal agents that what makes a threat especially serious is not just what someone does, but what they believe.

That ideological list matters, because it sets the stage for everything that follows.

2. The Ideological Dragnet

Bondi identifies a catalog of “violent extremist groups” whose agendas are supposedly rooted in particular viewpoints. The memo instructs JTTFs to prioritize actors whose violence is tied to:

“opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Those phrases are doing more work than they look like on first read.

“Extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders” is not a defined legal category. Neither is “radical gender ideology” or “anti-capitalism” or “anti-Christianity.”

These are political descriptors. They map almost perfectly onto the culture-war rhetoric used daily on right-wing media.

Bondi tries to limit herself by attaching these viewpoints to people who “use violence against law-abiding citizenry.”

But once federal doctrine tells agents that these ideologies are markers of “particularly dangerous” threats, the psychological shift is complete. You have taken ordinary political positions and placed them one step away from a terrorism case file.

There is a footnote later in the memo that insists:

“The United States Government does not investigate, collect, or maintain information on U.S. persons solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment. No investigation may be opened based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment.”

That is the legal disclaimer.

The problem is that the rest of the memo instructs agents to treat speech and belief as early-warning “indicators” of extremism. Once you call entire ideological categories “clarion calls of recent domestic terrorism,” the wall between speech and suspicion begins to crumble in practice, even if the memo keeps the wall alive on paper.

3. Linking Antifascism To A National Terror Narrative

A full section is dedicated to what Bondi calls the “anti-fascist platform.”

She argues that many domestic terrorists are “united by an anti-fascist platform that justifies violence and any other means necessary to combat perceived ‘fascism.’”

To make the case, she connects a series of events:

Carvings on the bullets used to assassinate Charlie Kirk, including “Hey, fascist, catch” and “Bella Ciao,” as reported by NBC News.

The July 4, 2025 Prairieland attack on ICE agents, described in a DHS statement as carried out by an anti-fascist group.

The 2017 UC Berkeley protests against right-wing speakers, where NPR described “scattered violence” at a left-wing rally.

Doxing incidents targeting ICE officers, cited through DHS press releases and independent reporting.

From there, Bondi concludes:

“Thus, violence against what extremists claim to be fascism is the clarion call of recent domestic terrorism.”

The rhetorical move is simple and powerful. By rhetorically braiding together an assassination, a federal facility attack, campus unrest, and online doxing under the banner of “anti-fascism,” she creates a single narrative arc.

Once that arc is in place, any movement, organization, or coalition that uses antifascist framing can be conceptually slotted into the same category, regardless of whether they have ever advocated violence at all.

That is how an ideological frame becomes a surveillance lens.

DOWNLOAD FULL MEMO HERE

4. The Prosecutorial Arsenal: RICO, Seditious Conspiracy, Terrorism Enhancements

Section 3 of the memo is not about definition. It is about punishment.

Bondi instructs DOJ prosecutors to charge “to the maximum extent permitted by law” and lists a long menu of federal statutes to consider in these cases, including:

Assaulting or impeding federal officers, obstruction during civil disorder, conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to impede or injure officers, solicitation of violence, arson, firearms offenses, fraud, destruction of government property, obstruction of justice, interference with commerce by threats or violence, money laundering, murder for hire, and the RICO Act.

She directs prosecutors to consider material support for terrorism charges and highlights seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 2384 as part of the toolkit.

Then she tells them to seek “all applicable enhancements under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, including the terrorism enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.4.”

Taken together, this is a clear message to line prosecutors:

If you can stretch a case into the terrorism framework, do it. Use the heaviest tools. Push for the highest sentencing exposure.

This is how you turn protest-adjacent conduct into a twenty-year federal case.

5. Retroactive Mining Of Five Years Of Political Activity

Section 4 quietly expands the temporal scope of this project.

Bondi orders all federal law enforcement agencies to review their files for “Antifa and Antifa-related intelligence and information” and deliver those holdings to the FBI for JTTF review within fourteen days.

Then she instructs the FBI to investigate “matters from the past five years” that involve “potential acts of domestic terrorism,” explicitly including:

Surge attacks on nonprofit organizations and facilities.

Doxing of law enforcement.

Coordinated interference with federal employees in agencies such as DOJ and DHS.

Potential unlawful targeting of Supreme Court justices at their homes.

The JTTFs are told to use “all available tools” to identify “all criminal participants” and those who “organize or financially sponsor those participants,” then refer matters for prosecution.

This is not about discrete future threats. It is a directive to revisit the last half decade of conflict between the government and its critics and ask which of those episodes can now be reclassified as domestic terrorism.

It is a retroactive dragnet.

6. The List: A Rolling Registry Of “Domestic Terrorist” Groups And Networks

Section 5 is the part already drawing public attention.

Bondi instructs:

“The FBI, in coordination with its partners on the JTTFs, and consistent with applicable law, shall compile a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5) and provide that list to the Deputy Attorney General.”

She tells the FBI to adopt “strategies similar to those used to address violent crime and organized crime to disrupt and dismantle entire networks of criminal activity.”

The bureau is ordered to deliver an initial report in 30 days and updated reports every 30 days thereafter or whenever DOJ leadership asks for one.

Ken Klippenstein’s scoop on this memo captured what that means in plain language:

Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” with the target being those associated with “opposition to law and immigration enforcement,” “mass migration and open borders,” “radical gender ideology,” “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”

On paper, the memo says “groups or entities.”

In practice, a list of groups is inseparable from a list of people.

To map and dismantle “networks,” the FBI must identify organizers, donors, regional chapters, online administrators, and rank-and-file participants. The memo itself instructs JTTFs to identify “all criminal participants” and “those who organize or financially sponsor those participants.”

This is why Klippenstein accurately calls it “a list of American ‘extremists’.” The legal language is entity focused. The operational outcome is human.

7. Grants, Tip Lines, Rewards: Building A Domestic Counterterror Economy

Once the conceptual and legal architecture is in place, Bondi turns to money and incentives.

Section 6 orders DOJ’s grant-making components to “prioritize grant funding” for state and local law enforcement programs that “detect, prevent, and protect against domestic terrorism,” with proposals due to the Deputy Attorney General within 30 days.

Section 7 instructs the FBI to issue an intelligence bulletin within 60 days on “Antifa and Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremist groups,” describing their structures, funding, and tactics so that law enforcement and policymakers can “understand the nature and gravity of the threat.”

Section 8 then deals with public participation.

Bondi orders the FBI to:

Publicize its tip line more aggressively for “domestic terrorism” reports.

Update its Digital Media Tipline so witnesses and “citizen journalists” can upload media of suspected acts.

Establish “a cash reward system for information that leads to the successful identification and arrest of individuals in the leadership of domestic terrorist organizations.”

She also tells the FBI and JTTFs to “aim to establish cooperators” who will provide information and testify against other members and leadership.

This is not just an intelligence program. It is an ecosystem:

Federal funds are flowing to local departments.

Bulletins shaping how those departments see protest movements.

Hotlines normalizing citizen-to-state reporting.

Cash rewards for snitching on “leaders.”

Cooperators are incentivized to build cases from the inside.

The line between investigating violent plots and surveilling oppositional politics becomes entirely dependent on how authorities choose to interpret that expanded ideological threat list.

8. The Legal Disclaimer Versus The Practical Reality

The memo closes with a standard line: that it “is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit” enforceable against the United States or its agents.

Combined with the First Amendment footnote, Bondi is trying to construct a shield. If and when civil liberties groups challenge how this system is used, the DOJ will point back to those lines and say:

We never authorized investigations based solely on speech.

We only targeted criminal conduct.

The problem is that everything in the body of the memo moves enforcement in the opposite direction.

It tells agents which ideologies to watch.

It orders them to go back five years and reopen files based on those ideological markers.

It asks prosecutors to layer terrorism enhancements onto cases that might otherwise have been charged as ordinary protest-related crimes.

It institutionalizes a rolling list of targeted organizations and encourages a patronage system of grants and rewards built on that list.

On paper, the memo respects the First Amendment.

In design, it places entire political communities under heightened federal suspicion.

That tension is not a bug. It is how modern security states operate. The written rules insist on restraint. The operational guidance quietly teaches something else.

9. The New War On Terror Is Inward

Klippenstein summarizes NSPM-7 as a “declaration of war on just about anyone who is not MAGA,” and Bondi’s memo as the “war plan” for how to wage it in practice.

That framing is blunt, but the leaked documents support the core point.

In the first War on Terror, the government used fear after 9/11 to justify aggressive surveillance and detention, primarily framed as directed outward at foreign enemies and Muslim communities.

Here, the government is using the assassination of Charlie Kirk and violent confrontations with federal agencies as the emotional fuel for a domestic counterterror structure that openly names:

Mass migration advocates.

Radical gender ideology.

Anti-capitalism.

Anti-Christianity.

Hostility toward “traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Those are the ideological categories being linked to “domestic terrorism” and placed under the lens of federal counterterror doctrine.

This is not a hypothetical slippery slope. It is spelled out in the opening sections of the memo itself and then operationalized through JTTFs, charging recommendations, retroactive reviews, list-building, tip lines, and informant systems.

The question is not whether there will be a list.

The question is who ends up on it, how broadly “extremism” is interpreted, and how far this machinery is allowed to run before the country realizes what it has built.

Final Word

Pam Bondi’s memo is not a think piece. It is an instruction manual.

It tells agents what to see as terrorism.

It tells prosecutors which laws to reach for.

It tells the FBI to create a living catalog of suspect organizations.

It tells local police where the money will flow.

And it wraps all of that in the language of national security, as if using the right citations and case law can sanitize the political nature of the project.

Some documents describe government policy in abstract terms.

This one tells you exactly how that policy will be enforced against real people.

The only reason you are reading it is because someone inside the system decided you should.

The Bondi memo is not the end of this story.

It is the first page of a much larger one.

The page where the new domestic war on terror stops being a speech and becomes a set of orders.

If you believe in independent, leak-driven reporting that refuses to look away from documents like this, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It keeps this work alive.

References

U.S. Department of Justice. (2025). Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence [Leaked memorandum].

Klippenstein, K. (2025). FBI making list of American “extremists,” leaked memo reveals. https://www.kenklippenstein.com

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