EXCLUSIVE: ‘Terrorism’ Database Nuked By Trump Listed Pride Flag Burnings, Called Butler Shooter ‘Anti-Immigration’

A think tank tasked with creating a database on “targeted violence” is appealing a sudden stop in federal funding, arguing the Trump administration is killing a “critical resource” for law enforcement. But the data portrayed a seemingly slanted picture of political extremism, the Daily Caller News Foundation found.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) was awarded $3.5 million from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to document “violent events” in the U.S., but President Donald Trump’s DHS has cut the funding, according to START’s website. The DCNF reviewed the database before START shut it down in March and found that it linked Trump’s near-assassination in Pennsylvania to “anti-immigration” views, highlighted attacks on LGBTQ flags and left out examples of anti-Israel violence at universities.

START’s database also emphasized ideologies commonly seen as right-wing, despite START’s self-professed goal to give government officials a clear picture of extremism in the U.S. The think tank previously came under fire for a study that put a pro-life group on a list of “terrorist” entities but kept receiving federal funds, including more than $315,000 for its new database before Trump’s freeze.

START lamented in a March 25 statement that it “will not be able to move forward with plans to use the data to train more than 15,000 state, local, and territorial law enforcement officers.”

Ryan Mauro, who studies national security issues for Capital Research Center, said START’s work reflects broader problems among so-called extremism experts. Many such experts are now losing federal dollars by the millions under Trump.

“There is a major political echo chamber in the world of counter-terrorism studies,” Mauro told the DCNF. He has also advised federal agencies and other government offices.

“There really aren’t many [groups] that focus on Islamist, ‘far-right’ and ‘far-left’ extremism proportionally and fairly,” Mauro told the DCNF. “Politically-motivated donors from the left love it when a non-profit creates a product to show how terrorism and extremism is mostly a ‘far-right’ problem, and politically-motivated donors from the right love it when a non-profit creates a product incriminating the ‘far-left’ and Islamists.”

START’s website said researchers used a set of criteria for the database, recording incidents with specific perpetrators who committed, or plotted to commit, unlawful violence after selecting people as targets.

“In under a year, we were able to compile the first-ever dataset that merged terrorism events with premeditated hate crimes, school-based targeted violence, workplace violence, grievance-motivated public mass violence, and attacks on critical infrastructure and key community services,” START said about the database, dubbed “Terrorism and Targeted Violence (T2V).”

“We are striving to make the database as comprehensive as possible using open-source information,” leading researcher Michael Jensen told the DCNF on March 6. 

START researchers have often focused on “far-right” extremists such as “QAnon” supporters and rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and claimed that “right-wing domestic terrorism” isn’t treated with enough urgency. Jensen has also given media interviews claiming Trump and Republican politicians are responsible for “disinformation” and the Jan. 6 riot. 

The DCNF found that the T2V study even blamed “anti-immigration” sentiment for the actions of would-be assassin Thomas Crooks, who nearly killed President Trump in a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024 and donated to a “progressive” voter outreach fund. (RELATED: ‘Satanic Cult’ Follower Allegedly Plotting Trump’s Murder Sought Help From Ukrainian, Russian Contacts, DOJ Says)

“Sources noted that the perpetrator’s social media included ‘antisemitic and anti-immigration themes,’” the database said, citing statements from the FBI in a 2024 CBS News article. However, the article also mentions that the FBI had not verified the posts came from Crooks and said another account expressing pro-immigration views may have been his.

A University of Maryland terrorism research center suggests the first assassination attempt on President Donald Trump was driven by “antisemitic and anti-immigration” views. (Screenshot/Daily Caller News Foundation)

Searching “pride flag” in the database brought nine instances of people burning or damaging pride flags, hurting no one, with the label “premeditated hate crime.” START located state records and numerous media reports to document those cases, citations showed. Just one “pride flag” incident resulted in someone’s death because an assailant allegedly shot a store owner for displaying the flag. 

One incident involved a “juvenile assailant” in Oregon who allegedly shot a BB gun at a pride flag in someone’s window. START’s methodology, however, required it to exclude “attacks on property that did not have the potential to destroy the functionality of the target or render it inoperable,” such as “breaking windows.”

The DCNF emailed START on March 6 about the fact that its data also omitted many activists who illegally occupied campuses and assaulted Jewish students since 2023. Jensen replied that recording these incidents is “difficult.”

“There are reports of students being assaulted but there are very few details about what specifically happened that would allow us to establish that the perpetrator premeditated the act and … code the basic features of the incident,” Jensen said.

The DCNF then sent links to several reports of premeditated acts by anti-Israel militants involving alleged violence and threats of violence, citing media and university sources. Jensen said March 10 he had sent them to his team for review. Jensen did not respond to follow-up questions about the descriptions of Crooks and pride flag attacks. 

START researchers at the time had included just one incident from the chaotic riots at Columbia University: a case in which counter-protesters allegedly sprayed “a foul-smelling substance” on anti-Israel students and faced no charges. 

Mauro said one reason for START’s questionable data could be that some details of events are often disclosed later on, making it difficult to track terrorist trends as-is.

“With terrorism-related incidents, new facts can come in months or years after the initial incident is logged in the database,” Mauro told the DCNF. “Researchers have to be watchful for information gaps because it looks impressive to have many data points, but that doesn’t mean each data point is presented comprehensively or fairly or in a way that reflects the latest facts.”

The DHS said in a March email that it established START in 2005 as one of its “Centers of Excellence” but lowered it to “Emeritus Center status” in 2018.

START “no longer receives the annual management and [the same] research funding that active Centers receive,” the agency told the DCNF.

However, accusations of bias did not stop START’s flow of taxpayer funding under former President Joe Biden. 

START received a legal threat from Students for Life in April 2024 for listing the organization as a “terrorist group” in a study because two members were arrested for writing on a sidewalk. Other pro-life groups also had the label, listed among neo-Nazis and Islamic terrorists.

“The Trump Administration got another decision right in cutting funds from START, as we at Students for Life know first-hand just how sloppy and biased their so-called reporting has been,” Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins told the DCNF.

“So thank you, Mr. President, for ending funding to another activist group hiding in the government’s paperwork,” Hawkins said.

After criticism, START scrubbed mentions of specific groups from its website and added a disclaimer on its homepage that the website does not represent “the official policy or position of the University of Maryland or the U.S. government,” archived links show.

The cancelled T2V study would have also recorded violence by “anti-abortion/pro-choice demonstrators,” according to a “frequently asked questions” page.

“Pretending that you’re a ‘terrorist tracker’ or some kind of champion for democracy while putting a target on fellow citizens represents a whole new level of hypocrisy and social violence,” Hawkins said. 

“We’ve reached a point in which it takes real courage for young people to stand up for the preborn and their mothers in the public square, which should make those at START feel shame,” Hawkins told the DCNF. “But if they don’t feel shame, at least they will feel the pinch of a tightened budget belt.”

Mauro told the DCNF that researchers should look at America’s terror threats as an overarching “Seditionist Movement” that spans different political camps — from the “far-right” to Antifa to anti-Israel activists — but centers around hostility toward the West.

“Without that realization, the discourse on extremism will remain another example of the hyper-partisan slugfests that pollute practically everything in our civil society,” Mauro told the DCNF. 

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