You see this eyebrow? It means business
A 22-year-old whose recent gigs involved directing shoppers to Aisle 9 for peas stands between us and domestic terrorists
By Sam Bellamy
Let’s hope an arched eyebrow and a pocketful of gummies are enough to deter domestic terrorists from violence in the months ahead.
Those appear to be the chief qualifications of 22-year-old Thomas Fugate for his new job as director of the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security.
Well, OK – he was once the secretary general of a Model United Nations club, where he might have gained some leadership experience, although none involving expertise you might expect for his gig at DHS.
CP3, as the organization is known, is considered the main hub for the agency’s efforts to combat domestic terrorism, according to ProPublica, which recently broke the news of Fugate’s ascension. Among other things, CP3 oversees an $18-million grant program for U.S. communities to monitor and take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.
ProPublica reported that Fugate’s rapid promotion surprised everyone in what’s left of the agency, where a staff of 80 has been cut to fewer than 20 since January, presumably by the barely prepubescent Trumpers at DOGE.
Those staff cuts prompted CP3’s last director, Bill Braniff – an Army veteran with over two decades of national security experience – to resign in March.
“CP3 is the inheritor of the primary and founding mission of DHS — to prevent terrorism,” he wrote on LinkedIn when he announced his resignation.
Others were blunter about its inexperienced new leader.
“Maybe he’s a wunderkind. Maybe he’s Doogie Howser and has everything at 21 years old, or whatever he is, to lead the office. But that’s not likely the case,” a counterterrorism researcher who has worked with CP3 officials for years told ProPublica. “It sounds like putting the intern in charge.”
Fugate was in fact an intern for the Heritage Foundation, architects of the authoritarian playbook Project 2025, and for two Republican congressmen from Texas, according to a LinkedIn profile that was recently deleted. The Daily Beast reported that Fugate also listed himself as an owner of a landscaping business for a brief time and as a “Cross Functional Team Member” at a Texas grocery story.
Research by ProPublica and the Daily Beast indicates Fugate’s meteoric rise can be traced through social media.
Last year, according to the Daily Beast, he set up an Instagram account dedicated to politics with this announcement: “Legend has it that Thomas Fugate didn’t start the fire 🔥, but that is always been burning since the world’s been turning 🤔. Welcome all to my new account for public service, community involvement, and politics 🇺🇸. Recently things have got to the point where I felt like my main account has become too focused on politics, so I wanted to switch things up!”
After Fugate graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio last spring, ProPublica reported, photos showed him “at a Texas GOP gathering launching his first campaign, a bid for a delegate spot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. He handed out gummy candy and a flier with a photo of him in a tuxedo at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Fugate won an alternate slot.”
Photos also showed the self-described “Trumplican” on the campaign trail and hobnobbing with Ben Carson and Matt Gaetz at the Republican convention. He also posted photos of himself with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
This year, Fugate joined DHS as an aide in the Immigration and Border Security Office. He was promoted to his new position last month. After the appointment drew publicity, a DHS spokesperson described the Fugate’s directorship as a temporary assignment.
Given Fugate’s inexperience, some who work with CP3 speculated that he’s just a warm body directing an office that the Trump administration intends to the eliminate, even though its work appears to have been effective.
ProPublica reports that, “According to the office’s 2024 report to Congress, in recent years CP3 grant money was used in more than 1,100 efforts to identify violent extremism at the community level and interrupt the radicalization process.”
Trump, who once famously told the extremist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” isn’t as interested in curbing domestic terrorism as he is in other matters, like scapegoating immigrants and transgender individuals and, of course, using the office to enrich himself.
Dozens of people among the 1,500-plus Jan. 6 rioters Trump pardoned on Inauguration Day have been identified as members of the Proud Boys and similar extremist organizations. And, given what happened that day, they appear to have a lot of potential recruits among MAGA followers.
These reprobates, free of oversight by Kash Patel’s FBI and agencies like CP3, could now serve as an auxiliary goon squad of sorts for Trump, folks he knows he can call on the next time a serious attempt is made to hold him accountable.
If that happens, we can be sure they’re going to do a hell of a lot more than raise their eyebrows and hand out gummies.
😆 at the eyebrow 😥 at our state right now