White House Readies Push Against Soros, Liberal Groups

The list of those who've been fired or otherwise punished for criticizing Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death keeps growing, and it looks like a much broader push against left-leaning groups is imminent. The White House is making no secret of that:

• "With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people," top Trump adviser Stephen Miller said on Kirk's namesake podcast on Monday, reports NBC News. He likened left-wing political organizations to a "vast domestic terror movement."
• On the same podcast, Vice President JD Vance said "our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies," but he asserted that most political violence is the fault of "proud members of the far left." And elsewhere on Monday, President Trump warned that "we have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder," per the New York Times.

• So how might a crackdown play out? The Times reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi might use the RICO Act to bring racketeering charges against left-leaning groups. For example, the administration is expected to look into the recent burning of Teslas and protests against deportations to see if any organizations might be implicated.
• On Tuesday, Bondi tweeted that "hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It's a crime." In her lengthy post, she wrote that "for far too long, we've watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over."
• Both Vance and President Trump suggested Monday that liberal philanthropist George Soros and his Open Society Foundations group are likely targets, per the Wall Street Journal.
• At the Federalist, Breccan F. Thies has a piece presenting the view of this from the right. "Sharing a country with people like this is untenable," he writes of the "assassination left." It's "too late to turn the temperature down. Without resorting to violence, Americans need to pursue complete and total dominance of those who would cheer Kirk's death, egg on more violence, and justify it away later."
• Democratic critics, however, warn the administration is ignoring violence on the right and using the Kirk killing to go after all criticism, not just hate speech. "Pay attention. Something dark might be coming," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted Sunday. "The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent."