Tesla Vandals are terrorists, according to President Trump

A version of this story appeared in the Howat Matters Bulletin of CNN. To get it on your entrance tray, register for free here.

CNN
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The administration of President Donald Trump is trying to expand the definition of domestic terrorism, since it aims to take energetic measures against a wave of attacks in which Teslas has been shot and burned, apparently to protest the powerful but murky role of the CEO Elon Musk in the United States government court.

Musk and Trump’s critics will see irony in the use of the term “domestic terrorism” to describe people who attack electric vehicles after Trump issued shot For more than 1,000 disturbances on January 6 that assaulted the Capitol and tried to interrupt the confirmation of the 2020 electoral results.

Under the attorney general of President Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice announced a New national strategy To combat domestic terrorism after January 6, as well as a wave of mortal massive shootings by white and extremist right -wing.

Apparently, the term will take a new meaning under Trump, since the agencies of application of the law and the FBI will now focus on anti-corporate vandals aimed at vehicles.

In general, the word “terrorism” is not used to describe vandalism, Daniel Byman, director of war, irregular threats and the terrorism program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he told me.

“There is a lot of destruction of the property, sometimes for political reasons, and this is almost never labeled as terrorism. These attacks seemed designed not to harm people,” said Byman.

Attorney General Pam Bondi described the desecration of Tesla as “nothing less than domestic terrorism” in a statement published on Tuesday. He promised to “impose severe consequences to those involved in these attacks, including those that operate behind the scene to coordinate and finance these crimes.”

Bondi did not elaborate who could be behind the scene that coordinated vandalism, so it is appropriate to ask if there is any evidence of such coordination.

Vandals throughout the country

There has been Documented incidents of Tesla’s vandalism In the northwest of the Pacific, the Northeast and around the country, not to mention innumerable publications on social networks.

Federal prosecutors accused a woman in Colorado to use incendiary devices, Molotov cocktails, to attack Tesla vehicles, and federal agents in South Carolina made an arrest in relation to a fire in an accusation station of Tesla, according to the Tesla accusation station, according to the Associated presswho reported that a affidavit mentioned the opposition of man to the Department of Government Efficiency of Musk.

Bondi issued his statement after an incident in Las Vegas, where Teslas in a repair center was shot and burned in what Sheriff Assistant Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department described as a “attack aimed at a Tesla installation.” He said that officers have increased their presence in Tesla’s locations.

Josh Campbell de CNN reported that FBI’s joint terrorism task force is investigating the Las Vegas attack.

Domestic terrorism is not a specific crime with which a person can be charged, but it is defined in American law As acts that are dangerous for human life, violate the law of the United States or the State, and are intended

Trump agreed that vandalism is terrorism during an interview in Fox News on Tuesday and tried, without evidence, to sow a theory of conspiracy that attacks are part of a coordinated and financed campaign.

“I think he will discover that they are paid by very political people on the left,” Trump said, without naming who could be behind such a campaign or what evidence has led him to that conclusion.

Musk also sees coordination in violence, although he also did not offer specific accusations.

“I think there are also bigger forces at work,” Musk said in his own Fox News interview on Tuesday. “I mean, I don’t know who is financing it and who coordinates it because this is crazy.”

There are currently no indications of any type of coordinated campaign, but the attacks, ranging from the tire cut to the honor of the Molotov cocktails, are clearly illegal and probably counterproductive if their goal is to protest what Musk is undertaking with his effort of Blitzkrieg to reduce the federal government.

John Miller, the main intelligence and intelligence analyst for the application of CNN’s law, told me that prosecutors should consider accusations of internal terrorism clinically instead of a political lens.

“If shooting bullets to the windows of Tesla dealers or throwing Molotov cocktails inside the cars in the lot is being done for political reasons, that seems to fall into the category of domestic terrorism,” he told me by email.

The suspects would be accused, as they were for the protesters of January 6, under standard federal or local statutes.

Some people involved with January 6, such as those belonging to oath garnishes and the proud groups of children were accused, judged and convicted of jurors with more serious crimes, including sedicious conspiracy, before Trump switched their sentences.

Despite the verdict of the justice system, Trump saw the protesters of January 6 as “hostages.” Now back in the White House, he wants to put anyone who coordinates an attack against a Tesla dealership in prison.

“Once politics enters the image of what is domestic terrorism or not, this is where we begin to see the imbalance,” said Miller.