www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730346019/5-takeaways-about-the-trump-administrations-response-to-far-right-extremism
excerpt:
In the early months of the Trump administration, a leaked FBI report warned about a new kind of homegrown threat: black identity extremists.
The warning reportedly came after six unrelated attacks on police around the country; the FBI portrayed the threat as "an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement" by people with "perceptions of police brutality against African Americans."
The claim was widely endorsed by conservative news media outlets but viewed with equally widespread skepticism as a move reminiscent of the FBI's demonization of black activists in the civil rights era.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked McGarrity if there's a single killing the FBI could link to Black Lives Matter or similar activist groups. McGarrity's reply: "To my knowledge, right now, no."
Pressley continued her attack on "this absurd designation" until McGarrity divulged that the category had been retired at the FBI.
"The designation no longer exists?" Pressley asked, sounding skeptical.
"It hasn't existed since I've been here for 17 months," McGarrity answered.
To recap: The FBI created a new category of threat and two years later quietly abandoned it without explanation.
