The designation process arrives three days after the designation

A presidential memorandum of 25 September 2025, addressed to the Secretaries of State, the Treasury and Homeland Security and to the Attorney General, sets out how the government is to act against what it calls organized political violence.¹ It cites by name the order of three days earlier (see Antifa is designated a ‘domestic terrorist organization’).¹² Where that order designated, this one instructs.

1. The investigative unit is the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the targets include funders and staff. The National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices “shall coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”¹ Beyond principals, the task forces are to investigate “institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet” that conduct, and “non-governmental organizations and American citizens residing abroad or with close ties to foreign governments, agents, citizens, foundations, or influence networks” for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act or money laundering.¹³ Agencies are to “adopt strategies similar to those used to address violent crime and organized crime to disrupt and dismantle entire networks.”¹

2. The financial machinery runs through Treasury and the IRS. The Secretary of the Treasury, acting through the Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office, is to “deploy investigative tools, examine financial flows,” and “provide guidance for financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports.”¹⁴ The Commissioner of Internal Revenue “shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism,” and “shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.”¹ The referral reaches individuals at an organization, not only the organization.

3. Section 3 builds the process after the fact. It provides that “the Attorney General may recommend that any group or entity whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of ‘domestic terrorism’ in 18 U.S.C. 2331(5) merits designation as a ‘domestic terrorist organization,’” and “shall submit a list of any such groups or entities to the President.”¹ Two things follow from the dates. The first designation was made on 22 September, three days before the mechanism for recommending designations existed, so it did not come through this process.² And the anchor the process uses, 18 U.S.C. 2331(5), is a definition of activities — it describes conduct and confers no authority to designate an organization, which leaves the designation resting on the memorandum that invokes it.⁵

4. The enforcement instruction reaches the moment before a plea. All federal law enforcement agencies with investigative authority “shall question and interrogate, within all lawful authorities, individuals engaged in political violence or lawlessness regarding the entity or individual organizing such actions and any related financial sponsorship of those actions prior to adjudication or initiation of a plea agreement.”¹ The memorandum lists the offences to prioritise, among them conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. 241, racketeering, money laundering, and “funding of terrorist acts or otherwise facilitating terrorism under 18 U.S.C. 2339, 2339A, 2339B, 2339C, and 2339D.”¹⁶ The Attorney General is separately to issue guidance ensuring domestic terrorism priorities include “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder,” and the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security are to make domestic terrorism “a national priority area” with grant funding attached.¹