The author of a Pentagon report on extremism in the U.S. military has warned that there is a growing insider threat after a veteran who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State murdered 14 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Bishop Garrison, the veteran leading efforts against extremist activity in the U.S. military under the Biden regime, has alerted officials to potential future domestic threats involving current or former military members.
The New Orleans attack involved former U.S. Army serviceman Shamsud-Din Jabbar driving a pickup truck into a crowd, killing 14, while in possession of an Islamic State. A separate incident on the same day saw Matthew Livelsberger, an active-duty Green Beret, detonate a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, injuring several people. Both suspects served at Fort Bragg and were in Afghanistan at the same time, but no definitive connection between them had been identified as of the time of publication.
Garrison, a former White House liaison to the Defense Department under Barack Obama, led a 2021 report into extremism in the U.S. military. However, he now says, “As far as I know, there was never any implementation of our policies.” He fears incidents like those on New Year’s Day prove unresolved dangers within the military.
HEGSETH.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, has also criticized anti-extremist efforts within the military, calling them a “sham.” However, he is critical of Garrison, accusing him of targeting Trump supporters in 2021.
“A 1619 project activist, a hard-core social justice Democrat. A man who believes all, all Trump supporters are racist and extremists. And what must we do to racists? We must define them and then we must purge them,” Hegseth said of him.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently accused Hegseth of having ties to extremism, saying he was pulled from protecting Joe Biden’s inauguration as a National Guardsman because his Christian tattoos mark him out as a potential “insider threat.”
Hegseth says criticisms of his tattoos are evidence of “anti-Christian bigotry.”
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