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A group of 27 Congressional Democrats is probing the Trump administration over its campaign to suppress and persecute people with left-wing beliefs under National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), demanding that officials divulge the breadth of their shadowy suppression campaign.
In a letter led to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the Democrats express alarm at the administration’s recent actions to suppress dissenters, which they say “dramatically escalate the Administration’s deliberate and targeted attempts to silence any person, organization, or institution critical of its policies and abuses of power on a global scale.”
The lawmakers point to recent statements from Trump administration officials labelling leftists a “cancer” and “enemies of civilization” during the State Department’s recent anti-left-wing ministerial conference on the “Resurgence of Political Terrorism.” In his speech at the conference, Rubio vowed to dismantle left-wing networks “brick by brick.”
These statements have compounded recent chilling actions from the White House to criminalize left-wing dissent under NSPM-7, which targets anyone the administration deems to express “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” or even “anti-Christianity.”
In recent months, the Trump administration has massively escalated the government’s suppression of left-wing individuals and groups. It has pursued maximalist punishments for those accused of, in many cases, simple acts of protest, especially acts in solidarity with both Palestine and immigrants. These punishments have included attempted deportations, disproportionately lengthy prison sentences, intense surveillance, and, in the case of people like Renee Good and Alex Pretti, outright street executions.
“This rhetoric and policy embody the core characteristics of fascist statecraft — using the security apparatus of the state to repress and criminalize political opponents and dissenters rather than specific violent acts,” the lawmakers write. They point out that, in inviting other countries to join their cause, as was the case in the recent ministerial conference, the Trump administration is creating a dangerous global network of governments working together for “transnational repression” of dissent.
The lawmakers demand that the administration officials answer questions about the legal authority behind NSPM-7, specify what left-wing groups they are targeting and how, and provide all documentation related to the implementation of Trump’s memorandum.
The letter was spearheaded by Representatives Delia C. Ramirez (Illinois), Jim McGovern (Massachusetts), and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts). Administration officials were given until August 18 to respond to the letter, but missed the deadline, Ramirez’s office says. The lawmakers published the letter in hopes of placing more pressure to elicit a response from the White House.
The letter is one of only a handful of relatively muted actions taken by lawmakers against NSPM-7, despite the massive, far-right threat the memorandum poses to civil liberties in the U.S.
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