The State Department is pushing to designate at least one violent white supremacist group as a foreign terrorist organization, an unprecedented move that national security experts say would be a big step toward fighting a growing threat on U.S. soil
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But it also could place an uncomfortable spotlight on President Donald Trump’s troubled history with white nationalist activists who support his populist message. The president infamously insisted there were “very fine people” on both sides of the racial debate following violent 2017 clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to furious criticism followed by a series of White House efforts to walk the comments back.
Joshua Geltzer, a counterterrorism expert who served on the National Security Council from 2015 to 2017, called the discussions about such a designation “long overdue.” As of October, the department was unwilling to comment “on internal deliberations related to FTO designations,” according to a letter sent to Rose by Mary Elizabeth Taylor, assistant secretary of State for legislative affairs.
The United States does not have a domestic terrorism law, and there is no legal mechanism for designating domestic extremist groups as terrorists. But designating subsidiaries or foreign offshoots of a group that was founded in the U.S. would make it easier to track and prosecute alleged members operating within the country, experts said.
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