Trump admin investigating children as 'extremists': 'What's next, toddler terrorism?'

Children younger than 13 years old are under investigation by the FBI after the agency designated an online group as an “extremist” threat, a group whose members consist of a large number of children, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Tuesday.

The group is known “764” and was designated by the Justice Department as a Nihilistic Violent Extremist group, a designation that the Trump administration established to succeed the Biden administration’s “Anti-Authority and Anti-Government Violent Extremists” designation, itself established in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“Publicly, the FBI casts these investigations as a crusade to protect the children from predatory adults. What they rarely mention is that many of the suspects are children themselves,” Klippenstein wrote in a report on his Substack. “To obscure this ugly reality, law enforcement portrays itself as merely focused on social media and gaming platforms – ones that just so happen to be popular among children, like Roblox.”

The Trump administration established its new Nihilistic Violent Extremist designation, in part, in response to the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, with many in the MAGA movement attempting to link Kirk’s killing with support for transgenderism, and despite no evidence that the suspected killer was motivated by such beliefs.

The new designation has also been cited by the Trump administration as a tool to provide “political cover” for its campaign against transgenderism, according to a national security official who spoke with Klippenstein on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration has also used new standards to define domestic terrorism to justify heightened surveillance on peaceful protests, a leaked memo from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security has revealed.

“[Child] terrorism is what Europe and the commonwealth have embraced; and it’s what the Trump administration has signed onto with its war on Nihilistic Violent Extremism,” Klippenstein wrote. “What’s next, toddler terrorism?”