Peach Tree Times

Conservative watchdog group Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA) is condemning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and calling for the impeachment of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after uncovering the agency is funding a university grant program that compares conservative groups, including the GOP, with Nazis as “anti-terrorist” initiatives.

The Department of Homeland Security's Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP) provides funding to public, private and nonprofit institutions, including universities or local government agencies, in an effort to fight against terrorism; a Thursday FOX News report said. The program has awarded 80 grants totaling just under $40 million. DHS rules prohibit grant recipients from discriminating based on political viewpoints.

The University of Dayton submitted a grant application to the program and their application included a link to a 2021 seminar on far-right radicalization that had been presented by an academic researcher, FOX News reported. One of the speakers at the seminar, University of Cincinnati researcher Michael Loadenthal, discussed the so-called Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization, which compared conservative organizations in terms of levels of extremism. The pyramid compared mainstream conservative groups, including the GOP and FOX News, to groups such as the Daily Stormer, a pro-Nazi publication. During the seminar, several other speakers compared current conservative administrations or mainstream conservatives to extremist regimes.

A DHS spokesperson told FOX News that the university held the seminar a year before receiving the grant and that the grant was unrelated to the seminar. The spokesperson added that the DHS does not support discrimination.

“The Biden administration’s weaponization of government continues,” Jenny Beth Martin, TPPA honorary chairman, said in a press release. “Tea Party Patriots Action is a grassroots conservative organization with about three million members and supporters. We peacefully mobilize our members to advocate conservative values. To have DHS funds be in an anti-terrorism program that links us to Nazis and puts us on a ‘pyramid of far-right radicalization’ is offensive and disgraceful.

“TPPA has already suffered from government abuse of power.  During the Obama era, Tea Party Patriots was deliberately targeted and persecuted by the IRS in one of the biggest government scandals of the modern era.

"Prior to today’s revelations, we had called for Secretary Mayorkas to be impeached because of his willful refusal to enforce our immigration laws, causing the historic crisis on our southern border. Today, we are once again demanding that Secretary Mayorkas be impeached and for DHS to return to its original mission of protecting our country, instead of trying to intimidate conservative Americans."