MRC Free Speech America update summary: On March 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which slashed funding to federal agencies, including to the the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. On July 17, 2025, the Trump Department of Homeland Security then axed wasteful, misdirected grants, saving taxpayers $18.5 million. The grants stemmed from waste at "the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), cutting $18.5 million in misappropriated spending that do not meet the stated goal of CP3 to prevent terrorism or targeted violence."
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #16: Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention
Type of Censorship: Grant
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Homeland Security
- Center for Preventative Programs & Partnerships (CP3)
- Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Summary:
The Biden administration funded domestic censorship by equating Christians, conservatives and the entire Republican Party with militant neo-Nazis.
- Part 1: Power 2 Prevent
In 2021, immediately after President Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary was removed by a court, the Center for Preventative Programs & Partnership (CP3) leadership ordered an all staff meeting to plot a new direction. Within nine days of Biden’s inauguration, CP3 distributed a training seminar, titled “Power 2 Prevent,” which outlined how the agency would encourage ordinary Americans to report their peers so as to stop terrorism “before it happens.”
The document encouraged surveillance and reporting of suburban parents “active” in “church groups" who were opposed to things like government overreach, animal cruelty or abortion. CP3 suggested that such individuals were secretly “abusive” and may commit acts of mass violence.
Though these training materials were distributed days before Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, the Biden administration slow-walked requests for documents on the initiative while allowing CP3 to use Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) grants to fund the targeting of American citizens.
- Part 2: PREVENTS-OH
As part of TVTP, CP3 awarded a grant to the University of Dayton to fund the initiative PREVENTS-OH. University of Dayton’s own grant request linked to a video of a seminar featuring CP3 agent J.R. Masztalics. In the video, organizers promulgated a “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization” equating Christians, conservatives and the Republican Party to militant neo-Nazi groups.
PREVENTS-OH, with CP3, gave detailed instructions on how to create “sock puppet” accounts on social media to “destabilize” political movements and encourage more censorship. At the PREVENTS-OH event — which CP3 participated in, and which was included in the grant request — self-proclaimed Antifa member Michael Loadenthal bragged “a lot of the things we’re doing are illegal.”
When questioned about the program by Representative Harriet Hageman during a formal congressional hearing, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stated his “understanding” that the pyramid’s use was unrelated to the CP3 program (the pyramid was used in the grant application).
- Part 3: Defenders Against Disinformation
CP3 also awarded a $750,000 TVTP grant to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a congressionally chartered non-profit akin to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or National Endowment for Democracy. Wilson Center received the funds to create the videogame Defenders Against Disinformation.
The Wilson Center modeled the “wargame” on a similar program developed by a U.K. censorship outfit and playtested it on American public schoolchildren in NorthEast Washington Educational Service District 101 (Spokane, Washington). The game was targeted towards minors and was meant to induce “societal” change that would encourage Big Tech platforms to work with “Media” and “Government” to censor more.
Key Individuals:
- Jordan Garza, CP3 Regional Prevention Coordinator
- Sophie Goguichvili, Wilson Center Program Associate
- Mark Green, Wilson Center President (also former USAID Administrator)
- J.R. Masztalics, CP3 Regional Prevention Coordinator
- Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security
- Kevin McAleenan, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security
- Elizabeth M.H. Newbury, Wilson Center Director of the Serious Games Initiative
- Sonja O’Brien, Wilson Center Research Analyst
- Miles Taylor, DHS Chief of Staff
