It’s a Really Bad Time to Have a Fresh College Grad in Charge of Counterterrorism

Our judges are still deliberating, but I feel fairly certain that Hannah Allam of ProPublica may have achieved the loudest cry of “You have to be fcking kidding me!” occasioned by a single piece of journalism of the past ten years. After the big boom-booms this weekend, we are now on alert for Iranian retaliation here at home and abroad. And Allam introduces us to a vital member of the administration’s team dedicated to keeping us safe from sleeper cells.

And she has to be kidding us!

[Thomas Fugate’s] career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism. The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a Homeland Security role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings, and other forms of targeted violence. Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration.

Okay, so maybe this young guy is some kind of security savant with an uncanny ability to sort out the sleeper agent in 10,000 cabdrivers or a unique sensitivity to quivering bricks of C4 under a seat on the crosstown bus. Or maybe he comes from Krypton. Alas, no.

“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,” said one counterterrorism researcher who has worked with CP3 officials for years. “It sounds like putting the intern in charge.”

Yeah, not so much, no.

Fugate brings a different qualification prized by the White House: loyalty to the president.

On Instagram, Fugate traced his political awakening to nine years ago, when as a 13-year-old “in a generation deprived of hope, opportunity, and happiness, I saw in one man the capacity for real and lasting change: Donald Trump.”

Fugate is a self-described “Trumplican” who interned for state lawmakers in Austin before graduating magna cum laude a year ago with a degree in politics and law from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Instagram photos and other public information from the past year chronicle his lightning-fast rise in Trump world. Starting in May 2024, photos show a newly graduated Fugate 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.

The next month, he was in Florida celebrating Trump’s 78th birthday with the Club 47 fan group in West Palm Beach. “I truly wish I could say more about what I’m doing, but more to come soon!” he wrote in a caption, with a smiley emoji in sunglasses. Posts in the run-up to the election show Fugate spending several weeks in Washington, a time he called “surreal and invigorating.” In July, he attended the Republican convention, sporting the Texas delegation’s signature cowboy hat in photos with MAGA luminaries such as former Cabinet Secretary Ben Carson and then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

At every GOP convention I’ve attended in the past 40 years, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting five Fugates, and that would only be because the sixth one ducked. I haven’t met one yet that I thought could order falafel from a food truck, let alone keep tabs on veteran foreign-intelligence operatives bent on doing us harm. The Daily Beast was curious about this latest wunderkind and decided to check out his social media presence.

But according to the youngster’s LinkedIn page, Fugate has almost no experience in this field—and in 2020 was working as a self-employed “Landscape Business Owner.”

The Management requests that you leave all references to the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company from 2020 with Knocko at the door, and we’ll be in touch. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

There isn’t much else on his resumé to suggest Fugate has the requisite skills to weed out terrorists. Prior to his work as a gardener—while studying for a degree in politics and law—Fugate worked at an H-E-B supermarket in Austin, Texas, as a “Cross Functional Team Member.”

A “Cross Functional Team Member” is what I believe the Red Sox called Rafael Devers before throwing him away to the Giants, the idiots.

But, as ProPublica points out, the really serious business behind Fugate’s appointment is the fact that the administration handed him the gig as a résumé-inflation device because it is shredding CP3, the office he is supposed to lead.

Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration.

The fate of CP3 is one example of the fallout from deep cuts that have eliminated public health and violence-prevention initiatives across federal agencies. The once-bustling office of around eighty employees now has fewer than twenty, former staffers say. Grant work stops, then restarts. One senior civil servant was reassigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency via an email that arrived late on a Saturday. The office’s mission has changed overnight, with a pivot away from focusing on domestic extremism, especially far-right movements. The “terrorism” category that framed the agency’s work for years was abruptly expanded to include drug cartels, part of what DHS staffers call an overarching message that border security is the only mission that matters.

When I’m done being appalled by this whole business, which ought to be sometime in 2031, I must figure out what the deal is with this dude’s rising eyebrow. You’re not Spock, my man. Nothing about your present position is logical.