U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard to keep the American intelligence community from cooperating with Germany over its “police state” activities against the anti-mass migration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).
While the right-wing populist AfD has become popular amongst Germans and topped a national poll for the first time in the party’s history last month, reports out of the European nation revealed that police officers may face expulsion if they are found to be AfD members after a spy agency classified the party as being “right-wing extremist.”
Leaders in the states of Hesse and Bavaria have announced that they will examine whether to ban civil servants, including members of the police, for being affiliated with the AfD, the Bild newspaper reported Saturday.
That announcement came just a day after the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) intelligence agency officially classified the party as being a “right-wing extremist” organization for its views on mass migration’s negative impact on Germany, Breitbart News reported.
In a letter to Gabbard exclusively obtained by Breitbart News on Tuesday, Sen. Cotton wrote:
I understand that liberal elites on both sides of the Atlantic loathe the AfD, but AfD’s platform has resonated with many Germans. Unsurprisingly so, since an agenda of strong borders, energy independence, and economic growth has appealed to our own electorate and many other Western democracies.
“Rather than trying to undermine the AfD using the tools of authoritarian states, Germany’s incoming government might be better advised to consider why the AfD continues to gain electoral ground and how Germany’s government can address the reasonable concerns of its citizens,” the intelligence chair continued.
Cotton went on to ask the DNI to “pause the sharing of intelligence” that could be used to target the AfD.
The letter signaled Cotton’s support for Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with both having spoken out against Germany for going after the party in Friday social media posts:
Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 2, 2025
What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies…
The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 2, 2025
The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment. https://t.co/Un6suHtSNJ
“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise,” Rubio wrote in response to BfV’s classification of the AfD as a “right-wing extremist” group.
“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” the secretary continued. “Germany should reverse course.”
Vance replied to Rubio’s post, remarking, “The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.”
“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” the vice president added.
In a statement justifying the move, the BfV specifically cited the AfD’s stance towards immigration, specifically from Muslim countries, as being “not compatible with the free democratic basic order” of Germany:
This can be seen in the large number of statements made on an ongoing basis by leading officials of the party that are hostile to foreigners, minorities, Islam and Muslims. In particular, the ongoing agitation against refugees and migrants promotes the spread and deepening of prejudices, resentments and fears towards this group of people.
The devaluation of the aforementioned groups of people is also reflected in the generalised use of terms such as ‘knife migrants’ or in the general attribution of an ethnoculturally determined tendency to violence by leading members of the AfD.
According to a senior congressional official who spoke to Breitbart News, “Senator Cotton made clear that the Intelligence Committee has the Trump Administration’s back: Germany will pay a serious price for spying on its populist party the way that James Comey and [the] corrupt Obama Administration spied on the Trump campaign.”
