Southern Poverty Law Center finds disturbing growth in anti-Muslim hate groups in 2016

Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani/Think Progress

The number of anti-Muslim hate groups increased almost three-fold in 2016, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC’s quarterly census of hate groups found that anti-Muslim hate groups increased from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year.

Mark Potok, a Senior Fellow at the SPLC, pointed to Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims and his election victory to explain some of the increase in anti-Muslim hate across the country.

“I think the most important factor probably driving the growth of these groups, in the states at least, has been Donald Trump and his campaign: his vilification of Muslims; his description of them as so dangerous that we need to keep them out of the country; his idea that we have to form a registry, Nazi-esque registry, in which we’re going to put down the names of all Muslim Americans; his proposal to surveil mosques; and on and on and on,” said Potok.

The SPLC report also found that the number of overall hate groups in the country increased for the second consecutive year — from 892 in 2015 to 917 last year. That number is 101 less than the all-time high of 1018 groups in 2011, but the increase is still troubling.

“There’s something going on in our country, and it’s fairly dramatic,” Potok said in a call with reporters. “I don’t think I’m telling anyone anything they don’t know, when I say that Trump’s election has been absolutely electrifying to the radical right.”

But Potok also said that the number is probably an underestimate of the true state of the radical right in the United States. “I say that because we’ve seen a very clear phenomenon of more and more people on the radical right never really engaging with brick-and-mortar hate groups on the ground out there in the real world. Instead, we find many more of them essentially lurking on the internet until the day that they decide, in some cases, that action is needed, and ‘action’ more often than not means murder or equally scary criminal activities.” Potok pointed to Dylan Roof, the white supremacist responsible for the Charleston massacre in 2015, as one example of this.

The SPLC report also includes an interactive map of where hate groups exist across the country as well as a breakdown of the groups and individuals targeting different communities. One of the organizations the SPLC labels an anti-Muslim extremist group is the Center for Security Policy, which Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway previously worked with.

“Outside of the Christian right, which is a relatively well-funded sector of the hate world, the anti-Muslim groups are by far the best-funded radical right-wing groups we see in this country,” Potok said. “Just to give a single example, David Horowitz, who is the leader of something called the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a really vicious anti-Muslim ideologue, makes (at least as of 2014) an annual salary of $567,000. So hating on Muslims pays rather well in the United States these days.”

While there was in increase in the number of hate groups, the SPLC found a 38 percent decrease in the number of anti-government “patriot” groups in the country, and he explained that may be because the individuals in those groups support Trump and his policies.

“I think what was really happening is that Donald Trump is so revered by so many people in these groups, that they have essentially stood back, thinking that Donald Trump is going to do all of the things that they wish they could do themselves,” Potok explained. “In many ways, Trump has co-opted these groups, co-opted their issues in terms of land use, in terms of guns, in terms of opposition to immigration, in terms of seeing Muslims as a threat to the United States and American civilization, and so on.”

The SPLC report confirms ThinkProgress’ own reporting. In the three months following the election, we found 261 hate incidents across the country. 41.7 percent of those incidents were specifically connected with Trump, his election, or his policies in some way. 11.8 percent targeted the Muslims—a high proportion given the small size of the Muslim community in the United States.

Learn more about the alarming growth of hate groups in the U.S. here:

Pence publicly insisted the Trump campaign wasn’t in contact with Russia. That’s now a big problem.

Aaron Rupar/Think Progress

On January 15, then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence went on Fox News and was asked by Chris Wallace whether there had been communication between the Trump campaign and Russian officials before the election.

“Of course not,” Pence replied. “Chris, this is all a distraction and it’s all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and question the legitimacy of this presidency. The American people see right through it.”

On the same day, Pence went on CBS and was again asked about whether the Trump campaign had been in touch with Russian officials.

“Of course not,” Pence replied. “I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

Two new reports contradict what Pence said during those interviews. On Tuesday night, CNN reported that “high-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence.” The report cites “multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials.”

The story was also reported by the New York Times.

“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reports.

While it remains unclear why Trump’s advisers and associates were in touch with Russian intelligence before the election, the CNN and NYT reports are the strongest indication yet that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. The U.S. intelligence community has already made public its findings that Russia used cyberattacks and other methods to meddle in the election on behalf of Trump.

Five days before Pence did the aforementioned TV interviews, news emerged of an unconfirmed intelligence dossier containing allegations that Russian officials are in possession of compromising information about Trump and his campaign. We know now that some of “conversations between foreign nationals” detailed in the dossier have been confirmed.

Also in the news in mid-January were communications Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, had with the Russian ambassador in late December, including on the day the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on Russia for the election meddling.

Pence told Wallace that Flynn and the ambassador “did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.”

We now know Pence spoke falsely on this topic. Flynn and the ambassador did indeed talk about sanctions, and their conversations “were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election,” the Washington Post reportedon February 9.

Though the White House was informed by the Justice Department that Flynn talked about sanctions with the Russian ambassador late last month, the Post reported that Pence didn’t learn that Flynn misled him about his communications until February 9, “a full two weeks after other White House officials were briefed on the matter, an aide to Pence said on Tuesday.”

On Wednesday morning, Trump responded to the bombshell CNN and NYT reports not by questioning their accuracy, but by blasting the sort of leaks he said he loved during the campaign’s closing weeks.

Flynn may have misled Pence about his communications with the Russian ambassador, but the White House hasn’t yet offered an explanation for the contradiction between what Pence repeatedly said about the lack of contact between the Trump campaign and Russia and what the new reports indicate about their “constant contact.”

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UPDATE (2/15/17, 11:15 a.m.): During his press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer characterized Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador as an “isolated incident” — a claim contradicted by reports of “constant contact” between Russian officials and the Trump campaign that broke hours later.

During the presser, a reporter asked Spicer, “is the administration undertaking any sort of effort… to make sure that everyone comes forward who had any communications with the Russians about sanctions or otherwise?”

In response, Spicer suggested such an effort is unnecessary.

“As far as we are aware, that is an isolated incident that occurred,” he said.

Congressman says constituents asking for a town hall are ‘enemies’ of democracy

Laurel Raymond/Think Progress

A group of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-CA) constituents went to his office on Tuesday to deliver Valentine’s cards. They go every Tuesday now, asking Rohrabacher to hold a town hall meeting in his district.

But now, after a confused tussle in the hallway involving a 2-year old and a 71-year-old-woman, Rohrabacher is now accusing them of engaging in “political thuggery, pure and simple.”

The delegation is one of many grassroots groups around the country organizing around the Indivisible guide, which is a how-to manual for people looking to have a more effective voice in government. It was put together by former congressional staffers after Trump’s victory.

Like many of the other Indivisible groups, the Orange County Indivisible group has been met with scorn and accusations of not being ‘real’ constituents. For the past three weeks, at Rohrabacher’s office the door has been closed and locked, and they have slid their documentation underneath.

Two weeks ago, they were met with the police. And this Tuesday, as a 2-year-old girl slid a valentine under the door on Tuesday, one of Rohrabacher’s staffers opened it, hitting her in the head and knocking her to the ground.

According to local reporting, one of the constituents then grabbed the door and tugged on it, causing 71-year old district director Kathleen Staunton, who was on the other side of the door, to lose her footing and fall. A spokesman for Rohrabacher’s office told media that she later fell unconscious and had to go to the hospital.

In a video of the immediate aftermath, the little girl can be heard crying, as visiting constituents apologize, and one of them helps Rohrabacher’s staffer up. The door is then closed, and the group leaves.

Watch the video here.

“I don’t think anybody from either side was trying to hurt anybody,” the mother of the young girl told a local reporter.

According to Mike Lisenbery, one of the organizers of the Indivisible group, the group visiting Rohrabacher’s office was predominantly composed of older retired women. This account is born out in photographs of the group. The video shows that there were about 10 people in the hallway.

In his press release, however, Rohrabacher paints the incident as malicious and characterizes the activists as an unruly mob of thugs.

“I am outraged beyond words that protesters who mobbed my Huntington Beach office violently knocked down my faithful district director, Kathleen Staunton, causing her to be hospitalized,” Rohrabacher is quoted by saying.

“Though the protesters think of themselves as idealists, they engaged in political thuggery, pure and simple. These people do not want, as they’ve claimed, to hold a town hall meeting with me. These are unruly activists on whom the lessons of civility and democratic participation have been lost,” he continues. “These holier-than-thou obstructionists will be held responsible for this outrageous assault. They are exposing themselves for what they are — enemies of American self-government and democracy.”

Rohrabacher’s fiery response has flabbergasted his visitors, as did his one-sided depiction of the events. The only mention of the two-year-old is a passively-framed aside: “In the tumult, a two-year-old girl apparently brought along with the crowd was also hit by a swinging door.”

“Everybody is taken a little be aback by his staff, really not — not trying to assume any culpability for knocking the little girl to the ground and really blaming it on us,” Lisenbery told ThinkProgress. “His staff should have known what was going on outside the door because they have security cameras outside the door, and they’ve told us before they can see us on the cameras.”

“They are exposing themselves for what they are — enemies of American self-government and democracy.”

Rohrabacher posted his press release to his Facebook page. According to Lisenbery, any comments pushing back against his depiction of the events have been swiftly deleted, along with links to the video of the actual proceedings (embedded above).

“This is a very hamfisted attempt by him to spin the events in his favor,” said Lisenbery. “Calling people political thugs, calling people activists, when it’s a lot of adults, mostly retirees with a lot of time on their hands, who are engaged in political action for the first time in their lives — it’s offensive to the people he claims to represent.”

This isn’t the first time that Rohrabacher’s account has differed wildly from that of his constituents. In local media two weeks ago, his staff characterized the visitors as purposefully disruptive and from out-of-district — which the activists said was untrue on both counts.

While Rohrabacher’s response may seem hamfisted to those involved, his narrative is part of a long-running tactic of elevating small instances of violence in order to discredit larger movements. Right-wing commentators and lawmakers have long used isolated acts of violence to discredit the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter movement, for instance. And when protests in one city after Trump’s election victory turned violent, the massive outpouring of peaceful protests were then lumped in as of-a-kind.

In dismissing the activists, Rohrabacher is also echoing a common refrain among Republican congresspeople who are struggling to respond to newly politically active constituents in the aftermath of the presidential election.

In Tennessee, Rep. John Duncan (R) said he wouldn’t hold town halls for fear of “extremists, kooks, and radicals.” In Utah, Rep. Jason Chaffetz dismissed a particularly raucous town hall as “more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate.” In Illinois, Rep. Peter Roskam snuck out the back door to avoid protesters, and a spokesman characterized them as “national groups” as opposed to local constituents.

And on the radio on Tuesday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), even extended the logic to a justification for ignoring Democratic politicians.

“These are people who have brought in anarchists to destroy this town. Of whom 240-some where arrested, with the support of George Soros and the Democrat left. This is not a cooperative environment,” he told Boston Herald Radio.

There’s no evidence that George Soros is paying protesters. Anarchists did smash some windows in downtown D.C. during Trump’s inauguration, but they were not connected to political groups, nor to the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who marched the next day at the Women’s March. Issa’s statistics are also misleading. The number Issa cites — which, in reality, is 229 — includes both the protesters and legal observers, journalists, and bystanders who were rounded up dragnet-style by the police.

Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO/New York Times

WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Russia and Ukraine. The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls.

The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the F.B.I. is sifting through as it investigates the links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government, as well as the D.N.C. hack, according to federal law enforcement officials. As part of its inquiry, the F.B.I. has obtained banking and travel records and conducted interviews, the officials said.

Mr. Manafort, who has not been charged with any crimes, dismissed the accounts of the American officials in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “This is absurd,” he said. “I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.”

Mr. Manafort added, “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

Several of Mr. Trump’s associates, like Mr. Manafort, have done business in Russia, and it is not unusual for American businessmen to come in contact with foreign intelligence officials, sometimes unwittingly, in countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply embedded in society. Law enforcement officials did not say to what extent the contacts may have been about business.

Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, which Russian intelligence officials were on the calls, and how many of Mr. Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians. It is also unclear whether the conversations had anything to do with Mr. Trump himself.

A published report from American intelligence agencies that was made public in January concluded that the Russian government had intervened in the election in part to help Mr. Trump, but did not address whether any members of the Trump campaign had participated in the effort.

The intercepted calls are different from the wiretapped conversations last year between Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. During those calls, which led to Mr. Flynn’s resignation on Monday night, the two men discussed sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Russia in December.

ut the cases are part of the routine electronic surveillance of communications of foreign officials by American intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The F.B.I. declined to comment.

Two days after the election in November, Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy Russian foreign minister, said that “there were contacts” during the campaign between Russian officials and Mr. Trump’s team.

“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Mr. Ryabkov said in an interview with the Russian Interfax news agency.

The Trump transition team denied Mr. Ryabkov’s statement. “This is not accurate,” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said at the time.

The National Security Agency, which monitors the communications of foreign intelligence services, initially captured the communications between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russians as part of routine foreign surveillance. After that, the F.B.I. asked the N.S.A. to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls, and to search through troves of previous intercepted communications that had not been analyzed.

The F.B.I. has closely examined at least four other people close to Mr. Trump, although it is unclear if their calls were intercepted. They are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative; and Mr. Flynn.

All of the men have strongly denied they had any improper contacts with Russian officials.

As part of the inquiry, the F.B.I. is also trying to assess the credibility of information contained in a dossier that was given to the bureau last year by a former British intelligence operative. The dossier contained a raft of salacious allegations about connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and the Russian government. It also included unsubstantiated claims that the Russians had embarrassing videos that could be used to blackmail Mr. Trump.

The F.B.I. has spent several months investigating the leads in the dossier, but has yet to confirm any of its most explosive allegations.

Senior F.B.I. officials believe that the former British intelligence officer who compiled the dossier, Christopher Steele, has a credible track record, and he briefed F.B.I. investigators last year about how he obtained the information. One American law enforcement official said that F.B.I. agents had made contact with some of Mr. Steele’s sources.

The F.B.I.’s investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring as an outgrowth of a criminal investigation into his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and for the country’s former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. The investigation has focused on why he was in such close contact with Russian and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

The bureau did not have enough evidence to obtain a warrant for a wiretap of Mr. Manafort’s communications, but it had the N.S.A. closely scrutinize the communications of Ukrainian officials he had met.

The F.B.I. investigation is proceeding at the same time that separate investigations into Russian interference in the election are gaining momentum on Capitol Hill. Those investigations, by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, are examining not only the Russian hacking but also any contacts that Mr. Trump’s team had with Russian officials during the campaign.

On Tuesday, top Republican lawmakers said that Mr. Flynn should be one focus of the investigation, and that he should be called to testify before Congress. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said that the news surrounding Mr. Flynn in recent days underscored “how many questions still remain unanswered to the American people more than three months after Election Day, including who was aware of what, and when.”

Mr. Warner said that Mr. Flynn’s resignation would not stop the committee “from continuing to investigate General Flynn, or any other campaign official who may have had inappropriate and improper contacts with Russian officials prior to the election.”

10 Headlines From The Federalist Papers Project, Which The White House Just Invited Into The Daily Briefing

TYLER CHERRY/Media Matters for America

The Federalist Papers Project is a hyperpartisan right-wing website that traffics in clickbait headlines, racist content, and misleading stories. And one of its authors just got to ask a question at the White House press briefing.

Jason Stevens, author at The Federalist Papers Project, asked a question via Skype to White House press secretary Sean Spicer on February 14 about regulatory reform. The Federalist Papers Project has, until now, not had a seat in the White House press briefing room.

The hyperpartisan right-wing website regularly pushes outlandish articles that border on fake news. Similar to websites known as fake news purveyors that share a combination of fake news and other types of content -- like real news or misleading information -- the Federalist Papers Project publishes its stories with exaggerated clickbait headlines, out-of-context quotes, and racist themes.

In addition to the various Federalist Papers Project stories that have been rated as half-true, or “mixture,” statements by fact-checking site Snopes.com, here are some other problematic headlines that the site has published:

Throughout the election, now-President Donald Trump and his associates frequently peddled lies and pushed fake news stories and conspiracy theories, and they were in regular contact with conspiracy websiteInfoWars. Since his inauguration, Trump and his cadre of aides have continued parroting fake news stories. The Gateway Pundit, a website that regularly publishes false stories and conspiracy theories, has also been given a press briefing credential, and InfoWars’ Alex Jones claims that he has been offered White House credentials.

Ex-Navy officer serves epic ass whoopin’ to Carl Higbie for placing Trump loyalty over Constitution

DAVID EDWARDS/Raw Story

Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL who is reportedly in the running to be the next White House press secretary, asserted on Tuesday that career government employees had a duty not to leak information damaging to Trump — even if they witness violations of the U.S. Constitution.

Following the news that Gen. Michael Flynn stepped down as Trump’s national security adviser, Higbie told MSNBC that the larger problem was government leakers damaging Trump’s agenda.

“More importantly, why is our own government leaking stuff to the press that is patently — they shouldn’t,” he insisted to MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle.

“Carl,” Ruhle interrupted. “Maybe our own government is leaking because of all this confusion, because possibly [former acting Attorney General] Sally Yates warned the White House counsel a month ago about the risk of blackmail, possibly because you have someone like Kellyanne Conway speak of alternative truths, Sean Spicer is potentially put in a situation where he’s like a human shield speaking before the press. And the story keeps having to change.”

“You are a Navy SEAL yourself,” the MSNBC host noted. “Could you see that maybe there are some people in there who are patriots who are saying, ‘I’ve got to figure a way to get the truth out.'”

“Or people with crosshairs on Mike Flynn, you never know,” Higbie quipped. “We have enormous leaks coming out of this White House on both sides right now. And I think this is indicative of a clear division of politicos, Obama leftovers. We call them the we-bes. We be here when you come, we be here when you go.”

“And then also, you have the loyalists, the people that are here to back Donald Trump’s policies, back his agenda,” he continued. “And that’s the thing. Donald Trump needs to find out right now, who is loyal and who’s a politico and who needs to go.”

“Loyal to whom?” Ruhle wondered.

“Loyal to Donald Trump and his agenda,” Higbie insisted.

MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance, who is a retired Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, refused to let Higbie’s comments slide.

“Let me say something about that,” Nance began. “The staff of the White House are loyal to one thing and one thing only. You and I as former service members have sworn our oath to one thing, the Constitution of the United States. None of them should be loyal to Donald Trump. They should be loyal to the honor and dignity of this nation.”

“This is not about people trying to undermine the Trump administration,” Nance explained. “These are people where we have a serious counterintelligence problem going on. There are FISA warrants out circulating behind this. We have a national security adviser who may have been cutting deals on Russian spies.”

Watch the video below from MSNBC, broadcast Feb. 14, 2017.