AG Ken Paxton announces undercover investigations of “leftist terror cells”

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Attorney General Ken Paxton is launching undercover investigations of “left-wing political violence” in Texas.

This comes after The Department of Homeland Security cut $18.5 million in funding and laid off 20% of the staff at The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, a DHS program aimed at preventing violence and terrorism. The federal government has also cut ties with organizations aimed at addressing hate groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Paxton cited the recent attack at a Dallas Immigration and Customs field office and a shooting at an Alvarado ICE detention center on July 4 as reasons for the investigations in a press release. He also pointed to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, calling it a “turning point.”

“There can be no compromise with those who want us dead,” Paxton said in the press release. “To that end, I have directed my office to continue its efforts to identify, investigate, and infiltrate these leftist terror cells. To those demented souls who seek to kill, steal, and destroy our country, know this: you cannot hide, you cannot escape, and justice is coming.”

A recent study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies consistently showed a greater number of right-wing terrorist attacks from 1994 to 2024. From January through early July — for the first time in more than 30 years — there was a greater number of left-wing attacks, according to the study.

That was based on relatively small numbers. CSIS reported five left-wing attacks during the first half of 2025, versus one right-wing attack.

"...Despite the rise in the number of left-wing incidents and the likelihood that such incidents involve realized violence, the lethality of left-wing attacks remains very low," the report concluded. "Left-wing attacks are overwhelmingly non-lethal and far less lethal compared with other ideological orientations."

The report cited two fatalities from left wing terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 2020: the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December 2024, and, in 2020, the fatal shooting of right-wing protester Aaron Danielson in Portland, Oregon. It noted that Charlie Kirk's death last month would be the third.

"Right-wing and jihadist attacks, by contrast, have caused far higher fatalities," the report said.

Historically, the far-right has been more violent than the far-left, William Braniff, the executive director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University, told KERA in a previous interview.

“The violent far right has been much more active in recent decades and much more lethal in recent decades — and the comparison is not really even close,” Braniff said.

Terrorist attacks that were not characterized as left-wing violence included a racist attack targeting Hispanic shoppers at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 and a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 where 11 Jewish worshippers were killed and six others were wounded.

Several conservative elected officials have pointed to the shooting in Dallas last week, which killed two detainees, as an example of far-left extremism. The shooter, Joshua Jahn, left notes indicating the attack was aimed at ICE according to law enforcement. But his political affiliation isn’t clear. Jahn was registered as an independent when he voted in Oklahoma in 2024 according to public records. And his brother told NBC News he didn’t think Jahn was interested in politics.

Focusing on ideology rather than the individual — who oftentimes is a disturbed individual lacking social support — oversimplifies a complicated issue, said Jason Blazakis, a professor and the director of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism.

"This is a complex situation, and humans are very complex in what animates them to violence,” Blazakis said. “And it's not just ideology alone.”

Blaming the other party for a tragedy is a tactic for politicians who want to mobilize their base, he said. Encouraging their supporters to see political opponents as the enemy may energize support for their cause, but Blazakis said doing so creates an “us versus them” narrative — something extremists want.

“It's important for policymakers on both on the Republican and Democratic side to tell their supporters, time and again, that political violence is unacceptable and that we need to be responsible on how we try to ascribe blame,” he said. “I think it's very dangerous to say this one individual, whether it's Joshua Jahn or anybody else who's carried out an act of violence, is part of some larger movement or organization. There's simply no indication of that.”

Disclosure: The Southern Poverty Law Center has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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