Republican Soldiers Aren't Being Purged from National Guard

Drew Fossen

News

19th January 2021

Republican Soldiers Aren't Being Purged from National Guard

The military is regularly screened for extremist views (Getty Images).

The Claim

There is a purge of Republican soldiers from the National Guard underway.

News posted on

@amuse

Tracie

PRESIDENT-RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE-ELECT

Renee 🇺🇸🦅

🇺🇸 WCoe 🇺🇸

Emerging story

Originally posted by @amuse on Twitter, a Tweet claims that a “purge of Republican soldiers from the military” is underway.

This Tweet is part 6 of a 10-part Tweet that also claims, “Biden’s transition team asked if it would be possible to determine which soldiers voted in GOP primaries or who have contributed to GOP candidates so commanders could station them away from the president-elect.”

Twitter users retweeted and reacted by saying that it’s scary if we are “removing active military who voted a certain way.”

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s investigation found this claim to be fake. It seems that people are sharing and responding to this tweet without actually reading the article from the AP.

The original AP article linked in the Tweet by @amuse does not mention anything at all about screening members of the National Guard based on political party affiliation or voting records.

The article says that “U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.”

According to Politico, the military already routinely reviews service members for extremist connections. The FBI screening is in addition to these routine reviews.

David Gomez, a former FBI national security supervisor in Seattle, said that FBI vetting would involve running peoples’ names through databases and watchlists maintained by the bureau to see if anything alarming comes up. That could include involvement in prior investigations or terrorism-related concerns.

According to Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, “If there’s any indication that any of our soldiers or airmen are expressing things that are extremist views, it’s either handed over to law enforcement or dealt with the chain of command immediately.”

There is no indication that members of the National Guard are being purged for voting Republican, or for voting for Donald Trump. Rather they are being vetted for extremist views to see if they are likely to commit acts of domestic terrorism.