Trump Admin’s Campaign Against ‘Radical Left Terrorism’ Is Built On A National Security Memo With No Congressional Approval

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A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had beenplanning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio's Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drewrepresentatives from more than 65 countriesto Washington. The gathering was informally called the Antifa summit."

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement,without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an unprecedented global offensive" against what it calls radical left terrorism."

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture isNational Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

The Justice Department has built task forces staffed by counterterrorism prosecutors. The FBI has set up its ownNSPM-7 mission centerto oversee investigations into left-wing movements, including ajoint effort with the IRSto investigate nonprofit groups.

The Justice Department hasused this machineryto convict activists and send some of them to prison for decades.

NSPM-7 was not passed by Congress. It's a lesser-known tool of executive power: a presidential memorandum.

As aninternational relations scholarwho has studiedU.S. foreign policy decision-makingandnational security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types ofexecutive actionswithout legislative involvement:executive orders,memoranda and proclamations.

This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.

Presidential national security powers

Executive memorandumsdirect agencies to prepare reports, implement policies or align programs with the administration's priorities. Unlike executive orders, they aren't required to be published. When they relate to national security, like NSPM-7, they're callednational security directives- many of which stay classified andmay not be declassifiedfor years or decades.

The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies anti-Christian," anti-capitalism" or anti-American" views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.

The memorandum claims that political violence originates with anti-fascist" groups that hold the following views: support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality."

The strategy includespreemptive measuresto disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts, empowering multiagency task forces to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization and the groups' funders. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi'sDecember 2025 implementation memowent further, ordering a five-year review of agency files on antifa.A task forcestaffed with counterterrorism and organized-crime prosecutors is carrying out these investigations.

Domestic terrorist organizations'

The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus FBI resources from approximately 200Joint Terrorism Task Forceson investigating acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons" for the purpose of political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen's rights."

NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as domestic terrorist organizations." That includes groups that engage in organized doxxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder."

Existing laws allow thesecretary of stateto designate groups as foreign terrorist organizations" that are then subject to financial sanctions.

But these laws do not permitthe president to label domestic groups this way.

That gap hasn't stopped prosecutions. In Texas, eight defendants tied to a North Texas Antifa Cell" were sentenced in June 2026 for a 2025 armed confrontation at the Prairieland immigration detention center. One man received 100 years, andothers who never fired a weaponstill drew decades in prison under terrorism sentencing guidelines.

In Minnesota,15 members and associatesof a group called Direct Action Minnesota were indicted in June 2026 on conspiracy and assault charges. A94-page indictmentcited behavior such as wearing an I'm Antifa!" sweatshirt, possessing a bullhorn or including a devil emoji in a Signal message.

Defining terrorism

NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, departing from approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.

Earlier directives,dating to Ronald Reagan's presidency, treated terrorism as a global menace countered through military power and diplomacy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed it as a domestic challenge after the1993 World Trade Center bombingand1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After 9/11, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense through theglobal war on terrorism. The Obama administration later tried to narrow those powers, asking whether targeted individuals pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons" - a standard focused on tactics and capture feasibility, not ideology.

The first Trump administration used a travel ban" against severalterror-prone"countries, while President Joe Biden redirected focus toward weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, the domestic terrorist" label itself has rarely produced actual charges. The State Department designatedfour antifa-aligned groupsas foreign terrorist organizations. But antifa is adecentralized movement, not a formal group with a roster.

This designation lacks any real legal weight becauseU.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. Domestic terrorism itself is not a chargeable offense.

Prosecutors have instead leaned on older statutes such asmaterial support for terrorismandconspiracy laws, tools originally built for cases like the ones above, not protest movements.

First Amendment rights at risk

There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law; definitions vary by purpose - criminal law, intelligence collection, civil liability.

Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifyingviolent or dangerous actsdone with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.

But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.

The First Amendment generallypreventsthe government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects theability for people to associateto advance public and private ideasin pursuit of political, economic, religious or cultural goals.

The directive's emphasis on ideological orientations - anti-Christianity," anti-capitalism" and anti-American" views - as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizesFirst Amendment rights.

Thirty-one members of Congresssent a letter to Trump in October 2025expressing serious concerns" about NSPM-7, warning that it poses serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech."

Asthe ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.

Congress has declinedto create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment-protected association and speech.

But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.

Silencing dissent

NSPM-7 does not criminalize previously legal conduct.

Rather, it states that the Trump administration will focus investigations around theidentity and ideology of supposed perpetrators.Prioritizing investigationsinto this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencinganti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.

Law professorSteve Vladeckframes this chill as obeying in advance," in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the domestic terrorist" label. Federal judges in thePrairieland casehave shown little sympathy for that distinction: One judge described the protest itself as an assault on democracy," even for defendants who never touched a weapon.

Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade,empirical evidenceshows it remains far below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S.are politically on the right, accounting for the vast majority of domestic terrorism fatalities.

Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even where, as in Minnesota,judges have already dismissedroughly half of similar federal cases for lack of evidence.

Melinda Haas is Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh