RICO, Domestic Terror Labels, and the Authoritarian Blueprint

In my September 13 article, Trump and RICO, I described how the Trump administration was beginning to use the language of racketeering as a political weapon. Since then, today’s oversight hearings have made it even clearer: RICO isn’t just a threat. It’s part of a strategy being actively shaped — sometimes in live testimony.

Patel’s “Follow the Money” Strategy

One of the clearest signals came in Senate questioning about recent attacks on houses of worship. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley asked whether the FBI is investigating if domestic terror cells are involved. Patel replied:

“I've always said we follow the money. And whether it's terrorism or attacks based on ideology or attacks on institutions of faith or people of faith, someone's paying for it, and we are reverse tracing those steps. We are not stopping at the perpetrator themselves. We are reverse engineering to hold those accountable in our investigations to who funded them and knowingly funded them. And we will bring the appropriate steps against them with our partners at DOJ.”

That “reverse tracing” logic is a classic RICO tool — following financial trails to identify conspiracies, funders, networks. It makes Patel’s threat to go after not just actors but organizers and funders all the more concrete.

The Epstein Files Cover-Up

The irony is glaring. While Trump threatens to unleash RICO against protesters and journalists, he and his allies have already participated in a RICO-level conspiracy that spans three branches of government to conceal the Epstein files.

Patel has insisted there is “no credible information” that Epstein trafficked minors to others. He has called Alex Acosta’s 2006 plea deal the “original sin” — but that agreement only bound the Southern District of Florida. It never blocked prosecutors in other federal districts, or state attorneys general, from pursuing Epstein’s associates.

That means cases could still be opened in multiple jurisdictions:

• Northern and Middle Districts of Florida: Acosta’s deal didn’t reach them.

• New York (Southern District of New York): Already brought the 2019 Epstein case, and still has jurisdiction over Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.

• New Mexico: Epstein’s Zorro Ranch falls under federal and state jurisdiction.

• California: Properties in Palm Springs and Los Angeles open the door to prosecutions there.

• Massachusetts: Epstein maintained a base in Boston and ties to Harvard and MIT.

• U.S. Virgin Islands: Epstein’s ownership of Little St. James Island gave the Virgin Islands and DOJ clear authority. Civil suits have been filed there, but criminal prosecutions of affiliates remain possible.

The FBI, under Patel, could support these cases. The DOJ, under Bondi, could direct U.S. Attorneys to pursue them. State prosecutors could act independently if federal authorities cooperated.

Meanwhile, Epstein survivors themselves stood on Capitol Hill just two weeks ago, demanding transparency. During their September 3 press conference, a military flyover drowned out their speeches — a stark metaphor for how their voices have been treated. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she asked that the victims be invited to speak with the president. Trump denied it, saying no one had asked him. Survivors were left outside, ignored, while inside the DOJ and FBI claim there is nothing left to find.

Yet instead of pursuing the open avenues of prosecution, Bondi and Patel have narrowed the scope. They’ve leaned on heavily redacted document releases, resisted subpoenas, and dismissed demands for transparency. The result is deliberate inaction — a refusal to “follow the money” when it leads back to Epstein’s powerful circle, possibly including Trump himself.

Bondi doesn’t need Trump’s permission to release the Epstein files. As Attorney General, she could give them to Congress today or publish them with victims’ names redacted. Patel has already admitted the files aren’t classified. The courts have only blocked a narrow slice of grand jury testimony, not the entire record. The truth is simple: the only thing stopping the release is Bondi herself. She and Patel are afraid of losing their jobs if they defy Trump — and so the cover-up continues.

It’s RICO for dissenters, cover-ups for insiders.

Trump, Bondi, Miller & Taylor: Building the Chord

Trump himself made the stakes personal in his gaggle before leaving for the UK. Asked about Bondi’s push to prosecute “hate speech,” he snapped at ABC’s Jon Karl: “We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.”

Bondi, once again in lockstep, reinforced the point: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech — and that’s across the aisle.”

Stephen Miller went further, promising to use the full arsenal of federal statutes: “It could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection. But we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities…” He boasted that opponents would be hunted down, stripped of resources, and forced to “live in exile.”

Former DHS official Miles Taylor has warned that this is no longer rhetorical flourish but a deliberate strategy. In his TREASON Substack, he described how Trump’s team plans to bypass Congress and cobble together existing authorities — FISA surveillance, National Security Letters, asset seizures, and RICO conspiracy charges — to brand opponents as terrorists. “They’ve already hinted,” Taylor wrote, “at how they’ll have prosecutors stack up charges against the left, including conspiracy, RICO, rioting, and obstruction. That’s how the government took down the mafia. Now imagine it pointed at protest networks.”

The First Amendment at Risk

The stakes could not be clearer when set against the Constitution itself:

“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is the bedrock Trump, Bondi, Patel, and Miller are threatening to undermine. Criminalizing questions from journalists, labeling protest as racketeering, redefining dissent as “hate” — each strikes directly at freedoms the First Amendment was designed to protect.

And it doesn’t stop there. When the administration talks of asset seizures, surveillance without warrants, and sham prosecutions, it endangers due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and undermines equal protection under the law. The authoritarian blueprint is not limited to silencing speech. It corrodes the whole constitutional order.

Direction of Travel

The pattern is now undeniable:

• Patel reframes protest as racketeering and urges us to “follow the money.”

• Bondi pledges to target “hate speech.”

• Trump threatens to prosecute journalists who question him.

• Miller promises RICO charges, exile, and ruin for the left.

• Taylor warns of a wholesale campaign to brand Democrats as terrorists.

• The First Amendment itself is being put in the crosshairs.

• And the Epstein files remain buried, shielded by the very people who preach about crime.

This is the authoritarian tell. Trump and his circle aren’t hiding it anymore — they are rehearsing it in public. The question is not if they’ll weaponize RICO. It’s whether anyone will stop them before the law is turned into a bludgeon against democracy itself.