DHS Hasn’t Kept Text Message Data Since April | Terrorist Use of Improvised Explosive Devices in the U.S. | Extremists’ Forum Inspiring School Shooters, and more

Investigating Terrorist Use of Improvised Explosive Devices in the United States: Evidence from U.S. Federal Court Cases, 2009 – 2024  (Angie N. Benda and Austin C. Doctor)
Terrorist use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) remains a persistent and evolving threat within the United States. Until now, few data collection and analysis efforts have focused on the systematic capture of terrorist bombing plots and attacks. Filling this evidence gap, this research note presents and analyses an original dataset of US federal charges associated with terrorism-related IED incidents in the United States observed from 2009 through 2024. The data features 110 related cases, the analysis of which indicates a sample peak in the use of IEDs in terrorist incidents occurred in 2024. Incidents are not siloed to a specific region within the US, but involve cases from coast-to-coast, with crowded spaces remaining the most prominent target. The most common form of device employment observed across the dataset is the person-borne IED, primarily involving pipe bombs and pressure cooker IEDs. Eighty percent of the incidents recorded in the sample were thwarted by intelligence and law enforcement professionals –the remainder either failed due to technical mistakes or were successful. The research note describes notable sources of change in IED threats over time and identifies emerging trends in the methods by which US-based terrorists may continue to utilise IEDs in their efforts to cause death, harm, and destruction. It concludes with implications for theory, study, and practice.

Trump Threatens Colorado with “Harsh Measures” Unless Far-Right Election Conspiracy Theorist Released from Prison  (Alex Woodward, Independent)
President says Tina Peters was “tortured” by Democratic officials.
Trump is demanding the release of a prominent far-right conspiracy theorist and former state elections official who is serving a nine-year jail sentence after she was found guilty of crimes connected to a nationwide scheme to overturn election results in states Trump lost in 2020.
Peters is among the only officials who have been convicted of crimes stemming from far-right plots to illegally reverse Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020, using positions of power to amplify bogus claims of fraud and launch spurious investigations into voting machines and software.
Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, was accused of breaching the county’s elections systems during a 2021 security update to prove her unfounded fraud claims. She was accused of helping a man gain access to secure areas of her office using someone else’s security badge to covertly copy a Dominion Voting Systems hard drive — the contents of which were shared with pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

New ADL Report Highlights White Supremacist Forum Inspiring School Shooters (Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider)
In December 2024, Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisc., killing two and injuring six before taking her own life. A month later, Solomon Henderson shot and killed one person and wounded another at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., before also killing himself. What ties the two heinous acts together, a new report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism suggests, is an online community of white supremacists increasingly recruiting and inspiring school shooters like Rupnow and Henderson. 

Bipartisan Legislation Would Create Report on Jew-Hatred within U.S. Extremist Groups  (JNS)
The bipartisan Violent Antisemitism Threat Assessment Act, introduced this week by Reps. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), calls on the U.S. Department of Defense to produce a comprehensive report on the role of Jew-hatred in violent U.S. extremist movements.
“Antisemitism has long been a dangerous force in extremist movements, and today, it is resurging in ways that threaten both Jewish Americans and our broader democracy,” Vindman stated.

Ex-pastor at Pete Hegseths Church Calls for Public Executions and says Bible Backs ICE Raids  (Jason Wilson, Guardian)
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has repeatedly endorsed the Reformation Red Pill podcast, and has appeared on four episodes. But the former pastor who hosts the show, and who attends Hegseth’s theocratic church, has voiced a range of extreme positions in recent months on issues including Ice raids, capital punishment, the racist “great replacement” theory, adultery and neo-Nazism.
The revelations come on top of recent media reports focused on Hegseth also boosting a video of Douglas Wilson and other Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) pastors arguing that women should lose the vote in the United States. They also follow previous revelations about Hegseth’s links to or apparent sympathies for Christian nationalist positions.