White House plans broad crackdown on liberal groups

WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials on Monday responded to activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination by threatening to bring the weight of the federal government down on what they alleged was a left-wing network that funds and incites violence, seizing on the killing to make broad and unsubstantiated claims about their political opponents.

Investigators were still working to identify a motive in Kirk’s killing, but the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has said that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and that he acted alone.

The White House and President Donald Trump’s allies suggested that he was part of a coordinated movement that was fomenting violence against conservatives — without presenting evidence that such a network existed. America has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.

On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.

Some of the highest-ranking officials in the federal government used Kirk’s podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show,” to lay out their plans.

From his official office at the White House, Vice President JD Vance served as a guest host of the podcast, inviting senior members of the administration, including Stephen Miller, the president’s top policy adviser, to praise Kirk while also detailing their plans to crack down on what they called leftist nongovernmental organizations. The show was broadcast on the television screens in the White House briefing room and in several West Wing offices.

In their comments, Vance and Miller spoke in vague and menacing terms about far-left groups that they said facilitated violence.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people.”

They praised Kirk’s commitment to free speech while threatening to exact a price against the “far left” that they accused of fomenting political violence in America.

An administration official said officials would be investigating people behind the recent burning of Teslas and assaults against immigration agents, and would be looking to draw links between those episodes and organized liberal groups.

In the wake of Kirk’s killing, Trump immediately blamed the “radical left” for much of the political violence in the country, and appeared to excuse violence on the right by saying that it was driven by people who “don’t want to see crime.”

The president also promised investigations into who was funding and organizing the left, suggesting the violence was somehow coordinated.

“The results of the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s murder have not been released and it’s unclear whether law enforcement has a full and complete picture of what motivated this individual,” Cohen said.