Trump Admin Makes History by Labeling White Supremecist Group a Terrorist Org

The Trump Administration has become the first administration in history to label a white supremacist group a terrorist organization.

According to The Daily Wire:

The Trump administration is now the first U.S. administration to label a white supremacist group a terrorist organization. The move, The New York Times notes, “could cut against criticism that the Trump administration has played down the threat of white nationalist violence for political reasons.” The group also happens to be pro-Russia.

The State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Ambassador Nathan Sales, underscored in a statement to the Times Monday that by naming a white nationalist group a “specially designated global terrorist organization,” the Trump administration is doing something “unprecedented.”

“These designations are unprecedented,” said Sales, as reported by the Times Monday. “This is the first time the United States has ever designated white supremacists as terrorists, and this illustrates how seriously this administration takes the white supremacist terrorist threat. We are doing things no previous administration has done to counter this threat.”

“The State Department’s designation for the organization, the Russian Imperial Movement, sets up the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to block any American property or assets belonging to the group,” the Times explains. “It will also bar Americans from financial dealings with the organization and make it easier to ban its members from traveling to the United States.” Three of the group’s leaders — Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov — are being labeled individually as terrorists, officials told the Times, a designation that includes additional sanctions.

Despite Trump critics frequently citing him as being sympathetic these groups the admin has taken decisive steps against them. The admin added white supremacist groups to the National Strategy for Counterterrorism in 2018.