|
America First Legal Exposes the Radical Left’s Influence on the Biden Department of Justice in the Weeks After October 7, 2023
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) released new documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation showing that, in the weeks following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) downplayed the resulting surge in antisemitism in the United States and coordinated closely with leftist organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Leadership Conference to advance their political agendas. These records reveal that, rather than defending Jewish communities targeted by hate, DOJ officials gave SPLC and other groups an open line to shape federal civil rights policy and refocus DOJ’s priorities away from policing antisemitic violence. AFL previously uncovered that the Biden Administration granted other Leftist groups inside access to administration officials and even data.
The documents reveal a pattern of collaboration between DOJ officials and leftwing advocacy groups that marginalized concerns about antisemitism while advancing other ideological priorities. Key findings include:
Leftist organizations set the agendas for DOJ civil rights meetings. When antisemitism did appear on the DOJ’s 2022 agenda, it was grouped with “Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence” and was overshadowed by two separate “white supremacy” agenda items. After October 7, 2023, the subject of antisemitism disappeared entirely from DOJ civil rights meeting agendas. Instead, DOJ officials appeared singularly concerned about speculated backlash against Muslims and supporters of “Palestine,” including comparing it to the backlash against Muslims following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Leftist groups routinely flagged issues directly to top DOJ officials, including Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who—on at least one occasion—confirmed that the FBI was “activated” and tracking an issue raised by one of the DOJ’s “MASSAH” (Muslim, Arab, Sikh, South Asian, and Hindu) groups.
This collaboration could not be clearer and exposes the Biden Administration’s clear bias against fighting antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s horrific October 7, 2023, attack. Records show that Biden’s DOJ was more concerned with antisemitic violence in the United States in 2022 than it was in the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023.
AFL identified that, in 2022, the topic of antisemitism was on the agenda for the Office of the Deputy Attorney General’s Quarterly Civil Rights Organization Meeting, lumped in with “Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence” and appearing alongside other Biden Administration priorities like combating “White Supremacy in Law Enforcement.”
|
 |
 |
Leftist groups like the Leadership Conference not only shaped the agenda—they wrote it entirely. One agenda item focusing on “white supremacy” was apparently not enough, so they unilaterally added a second agenda item to promote their own policy paper, “Confronting White Supremacist Violence: An Effective and Inclusive Path Forward.”
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
While antisemitism was on the agenda before October 7, the tone shifted drastically after the attack. In the days following Hamas’s massacre, DOJ officials treated Muslims and pro-Palestinian activists as though they were the only victims of increased animosity in the United States, hosting meetings that ignored the explosion of antisemitic harassment, intimidation, and violence in communities and on campuses across the country.
The agenda for the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s October 24, 2023, “Monthly Civil Rights Division Meeting” made only a passing reference to the “Middle East conflict,” focusing instead on the effect on “Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian communities” and “the recent spike in hate crimes and incidents directed towards those communities.” There was zero reference to Jewish or Christian Americans or the effects of current events on them.
Specifically, the agenda that included anti-Muslim bias, voting rights, redlining, and language access did not mention antisemitism, the increase in antisemitic animosity in American communities and college campuses, or that Israeli and American hostages were being held captive by terrorists in Israel.
|
 |
Another DOJ “Interagency Meeting with Religious Communities” prioritized addressing “hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims and others,” giving the floor to organizations like the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Emgage, and the Indian-American Muslim Council (IAMC). Meanwhile, Jewish communities were lumped into the throwaway “and others” category.
|
 |
 |
Moreover, for an agency purporting to combat bias, Biden’s Civil Rights Division used the aftermath of October 7 to smear Donald Trump—blaming him for “inciting hate crimes” during the 2016 election—rather than addressing the very real rise in antisemitic attacks.
|
 |
By November, just one month after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Biden’s DOJ had scheduled a meeting explicitly titled “Post-9/11 Backlash Huddle w[ith] DAAGs [deputy attorneys general]” to discuss perceived hostility toward Muslims. DOJ seemingly ignored antisemitism entirely.
|
 |
DOJ records also show a standing series of quarterly meetings with “MASSAH” groups (Muslim, Arab, Sikh, South Asian, and Hindu), giving them a direct line to top Civil Rights Division officials. These groups flagged issues, and DOJ officials fell in line and took action to address what the MASSAH groups raised. |
 |
In one exchange, when a MASSAAH group sent a news story, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who ran Biden’s Civil Rights Division, replied, “This is on the FBI’s radar and they are activated.”
|
 |
 |
|
“The Biden Department of Justice was singularly focused on advancing a radical, weaponized agenda instead of protecting the American people. These documents demonstrate the extent to which they essentially functioned as an extension of anti-American organizations like the SPLC, focused on phantom issues favored by leftists, and ignored real pressing civil rights issues in the United States,” said Gene Hamilton, President of America First Legal.
America First Legal will continue exposing how the Biden Administration corrupted law enforcement and weaponized the DOJ to serve political allies rather than protect all Americans equally under the law.
Read the document production here.
Read more about the investigation here.
|
|
|
