Biden pressed to label foreign hate groups ‘terrorists’: Report

Lawmaker asks Biden to name foreign white nationalist groups ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ to curb threat.

President Joe Biden’s administration is being pressed by Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin to consider designating white supremacist groups overseas as foreign terrorists subject to US government actions as the US continues to reckon with domestic extremism after the January 6 far-right insurrection attempt, the Reuters news agency reports. If Biden’s administration were to take the unprecedented step of listing such groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs), or even a less-stringent designation, it would help curb dangerous white supremacist organisations, Slotkin argued in the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was reviewed by Reuters. “It would also give the United States Government more tools to engage and flag US citizens who contact, support, train, and join these (white supremacist extremist) groups,” said Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who chairs a US House subcommittee focusing on intelligence and counterterrorism.