US attorney general Pam Bondi has instructed the FBI to place bounties on trans activists promoting “radical gender ideology,” a leaked memo suggests.

The Trump administration’s chief legal advisor instructed the US security service to create a “cash reward system” incentivising members of the public to share information on what the attorney’s office described as “domestic terrorist groups.”

These groups, according to Bondi, include groups or individuals promoting so-called “radical gender ideology” and “hostility towards traditional values on family, religion, and morality.”

The leaked memo, issued on 5 December, argues the strategy would lead to the “successful identification and arrest” of relevant individuals and groups.

Orders were issued in response to a memorandum, signed by Donald Trump in the wake of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, which aims to combat when the US president has routinely called the “enemy within.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the memorandum, dubbed NSPM-7, a “fever dream of conspiracies” and “outright falsehoods” which, they argued, was designed to silence Trump’s political opponents.

Citing the document, Bondi wrote that implementing cash bounties would help federal law enforcement to enforce provisions outlined in NSPM-7.

She suggested that groups that fall under the government’s definition of domestic terrorism would be prosecuted and face charges including conspiracy against the United States, which carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.