Letter Steady State To Ssci And Hpsci
The Steady State
September 19, 2025
The Honorable Tom Cotton, Chairman
The Honorable Mark Warner, Vice Chairman
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Mike Turner, Chairman
The Honorable Jim Himes, Ranking Member
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: Executive Overreach and the Misuse of Intelligence Authorities
Dear Chairmen and Ranking Members:
In recent days, the President and his administration have taken steps that pose grave risks to constitutional freedoms and the lawful use of national security authorities. Most troubling, President Trump announced his intent to designate “Antifa” a “major terrorist organization,”[1] and the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Joe Kent, publicly endorsed this view and urged that “Antifa” be targeted with “federal terrorism charges.”[2]
This rhetoric is legally inaccurate and profoundly dangerous. As you know, U.S. law provides no statutory authority to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations,[3] and while federal law does contain terrorism-related criminal statutes, none is applicable to labeling or prosecuting a diffuse domestic movement such as Antifa. Moreover, Antifa is not an organization at all. It is a loosely affiliated movement or ideology, not a centralized entity.[4] To treat an ideology as an “organization” for the purposes of intelligence collection and terrorism designation not only misconstrues the law but also risks criminalizing constitutionally protected expression and association.
The Steady State had previously expressed grave concerns during Mr. Kent’s nomination process,[5] and those concerns have now been made manifest. Mr. Kent’s statements in response to the President’s announcement demonstrated his willingness to use—and abuse—the authorities of the NCTC to target critics of the President and organizations perceived as political enemies. This response is even more concerning given that his boss, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, has repeatedly used public fora to take overtly political positions, including publicly calling for the criminal prosecution of former Intelligence Community members she perceives as adversaries of the President.[6]
The danger is not hypothetical. In the last week alone, the administration has coupled its threats of designating Antifa with calls to launch investigations of political opponents using intelligence and law enforcement entities. These actions signal a clear intent to weaponize the national security apparatus against domestic dissent and partisan critics. Such behavior erodes the constitutional distinction between lawful governance and authoritarian misuse of state power.
Given the stakes, we respectfully urge the Committees to exercise vigorous oversight and seek immediate answers to the following questions:
1. Collection and Analysis – Are the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) or any elements of the Intelligence Community engaged in collecting against, or analyzing, domestic political organizations or movements—including Antifa? If so, under what legal authority?
2. Disseminated Intelligence – What intelligence products, whether finished or unevaluated, have been disseminated on the subject of “Antifa”? Who were the recipients of such reporting, and how were the products described?
3. Assessment of Antifa – Has the Intelligence Community assessed, including in any products references in #2 above, contrary to all publicly available information, that Antifa is in fact a formal organization rather than a diffuse ideology or movement? If so, on what basis?
4. NCTC Director’s Statements – How do Mr. Kent’s public assertions comport with the legal limits on the authorities of NCTC and the broader Intelligence Community? Has the DNI or the Department of Justice reviewed these statements for accuracy and compliance with law?
The Committees must ensure that the Intelligence Community is not being weaponized against domestic political dissent under the guise of counterterrorism. Oversight hearings and formal inquiries are essential to determine whether intelligence tools are being directed unlawfully at U.S. persons and political activity, and whether the NCTC Director has demonstrated the judgment and understanding necessary for his office.
In the past, U.S. intelligence professionals often used the term “Security Services” to describe the apparatus of intelligence and law enforcement entities deployed by authoritarian adversaries such as Russia, Iran, and China against their own people. That phrase was rarely, if ever, applied to America’s Intelligence Community or law enforcement agencies. Yet the President’s actions, and those of his subordinates—including DNI Gabbard, NCTC Director Kent, FBI Director Patel, and Attorney General Bondi—call that semantic distinction into question. It seems clear that the United States is far along the road to creating its own version of the “Security Services.” In our democracy,
intelligence services, have been strictly, until now, limited by law from turning inward against the citizenry – in autocracies it is the “Security Services” that support and defend the autocrat and his supporters and friends, sometimes using the law, sometimes defying it.
Respectfully,
Steven A. Cash
Executive Director, The Steady State
[email protected]
212.685.9660
[1] Donald J. Trump, X (Sept. 18, 2025, 9:10 AM), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/18/trump-says-he-plans-to-designate-antifa-a-major-terrorist-group.
[2] Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19), X (Sept. 18, 2025, 11:24 AM), https://x.com/joekent16jan19/status/1968487590081831264.
[3] Can Trump Declare Antifa a Terrorist Organization?, PBS NewsHour (Sept. 18, 2025), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-wants-to-designate-antifa-as-a-major-terrorist-organization-can-he-do-that. See also, Cong. Research Serv., R47885, Understanding and Conceptualizing Domestic Terrorism: Issues for Congress (2023), https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47885.
(“Despite the statutory definition of [Domestic Terrorism] in Title 18 of the U.S. Code, no federal criminal provision expressly prohibits “domestic terrorism.” While DT is defined in federal statute, the term domestic terrorist is not used to officially label any group (as it is with foreign terrorist organizations”).
[4] Director Christopher Wray Testifies Before the House Homeland Security Committee, AP News (Sept. 17, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-james-comey-politics-bdd3b6078e9efadcfcd0be4b65f2362e; What Is Antifa? What Does Trump’s Label Mean?, Al Jazeera (Sept. 18, 2025), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/18/what-is-antifa-what-does-trumps-major-terrorist-label-mean.
[5] Letter from The Steady State to S. Select Comm. on Intelligence & H. Permanent Select Comm. on Intelligence (June 9, 2025), https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DX-u3HlDYwqH17DsnNrxAF95PopisRF4/view.
[6] Alex Ward, Tulsi Gabbard Calls for Prosecution of Former Intel Chiefs over “Russia Hoax,” Politico (July 18, 2025), https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/18/tulsi-gabbard-2016-election-investigation-00463779.Link