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Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa.
Trump has consistently, misleadingly blamed antifa as perpetrators of violence at the George Floyd protests.
(Elyse Samuels, Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
The Facts
with a clear organizational structure or leader. It is a decentralized network of activists who don’t coordinate. Their common ground is opposing anything that they think is racist or fascist. In recent years, antifa activists appeared whenever there was a large gathering of white nationalists.
And white nationalists, as counterintuitive as it might seem, have been known to attend Black Lives Matter rallies. That is what could then draw attention from antifa forces, according to
, director of the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
vice president of the Center on Extremism at ADL, emphasized, “It’s a challenge [to identify antifa] because this is not an organized group. You’re essentially looking to try to identify what does somebody believe in.” Antifa has been identified by patches, flags, graffiti and black clothing, Segal explained. And at times, they can be identifiable by moving in “black bloc” formation. But, Segal hedged, looking to identify antifa by these visual cues is “not foolproof.”
Jones reviewed protests in more than 140 cities and spoke with U.S. officials within the joint terrorism task force. Most of the violence, Jones said, was committed by “local hooligans, sometimes gangs, sometimes just individuals that are trying to take advantage of an opportunity.”
“There were reports of some antifa at different protests,” he concluded. “But they stood back, did not engage, certainly not in a violent way.”
Officials have arrested more than 14,000 people across 49 cities nationwide since May 27, according to a Washington Post tally of data provided by police departments and included in media reports.
for low-level offenses, including curfew violations and failure to disperse.
Roughly 80 federal charges, including murder and throwing molotov cocktails at police vehicles, reveal no evidence of an antifa plot.
who identify with the far-right extremist “boogaloo” movement are among those facing the most serious federal charges. Asked whether anyone who identifies as antifa had been charged, Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd said via email, “We do not collect statistics based on potential inspiration but on unlawful acts according to statute.”
An intelligence bulletin issued by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center that was
warned that “anarchist extremists continue to pose the most significant threat of targeted assaults against police.” The bulletin, which was distributed to police departments nationwide, mentions antifa only in a footnote differentiating those who self-identify with the group from anarchists.
Rather, the bulletin said that “the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” specifically pointing to
-related groups as likely to be “instigating violence” at the protests.
The DHS said in a June 1 internal intelligence report seen
that “most of the violence appears to have been driven by opportunists.” A
dated June 17 reviewed by Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent stated “anarchist and anti-government extremists pose the most significant threat of targeted low-level, protest-related assaults against law enforcement.” The document did not mention antifa by name and the document’s definition of “anarchist extremist” appears to exclude the group.