Antifa is accused of being a communist group that runs violent revolutions in the name of anti-fascism.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned the Biden administration’s new domestic threat assessment of violent extremism, saying the report, released Wednesday, does not adequately take into account the anarchist extremists who attacked U.S. cities last summer.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray told Congress that the majority of domestic extremism in 2020 comes from antigovernment elements (anarchists + militias), but the Biden Administration‘s assessment is completely silent on anarchists and only mentions antigovernment violence on the part of militias. ” Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (ranking member), said.
“So what are you going to call the burning, the looting, the murders that took place across the country last summer?”
He noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress in September 2020 that the Bureau “has opened an appropriate prospective investigation into violent anarchist extremists who endorse or consider themselves Antifa.”
“Director Christopher Wray also told Congress that anarcho-extremist crime in 2020 is equal to the last three years combined.” In a separate statement, Grassley wrote, “In 2020, there were no racially motivated murders, but there were three murders of anti-government extremists, including Antifa.”
Democrats, including top members of the party, have dismissed or downplayed the seriousness of anarchist extremist groups such as Antifa. These extremist groups are accused of causing violence and riots during the civil unrest sparked by the death of African-American man George Floyd last summer.
In a speech on the House floor last year, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) called the Antifa riots and violence in cities like Portland a “myth” and argued that The extremist group is “imaginary.
At a hearing in September 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray acknowledged that “Antifa” was “real. But he added that the FBI considers it “more of an ideological movement” than a group or organization in the ordinary sense. However, he said, Antifa does have “small groups” or “coordinating nodes. The FBI is “actively investigating the potential for violence from these coordinating nodes in various regions.”
Grassley said, “You wouldn’t know this by reading the Biden administration’s threat assessment.”
“Stop politicizing the threat assessment!” he said. he said.
The unclassified summary briefing, which was criticized, was put together by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The report notes that domestic extremists, driven by a range of ideologies, would pose a risk of violence. Intelligence officials who authored the report said extremists motivated by bias against minorities and a Perception of government overreach would “almost certainly” drive more radical violence.
The brief also noted that events such as the alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol “will almost certainly spur some [violent domestic extremists] to try to engage in violent activity this year.”
The assessment was conducted after President Biden asked the Director of National Intelligence in January to assess the threat of violent domestic extremism following the storming of the Capitol.
In the wake of that day’s violence, Biden and Democrats escalated the issue, raising concerns among critics that the new administration might limit its focus on assessing domestic threats to the events of Jan. 6 and lack concern for the violence that will unfold across the country in the summer of 2020.
The brief concludes that ethnically motivated and violent militia extremists will pose the deadliest threats. It noted that some ethnically motivated extremists “would be most likely to conduct large-scale attacks against civilians,” while militia groups would “target law enforcement and government personnel and facilities.
Intelligence officials wrote: “The threat of violent militia extremists has increased in the last year and will almost certainly continue to rise throughout 2021 as controversial sociopolitical factors drive these extremists to commit violence.”
Officials also warned that small-scale domestic extremists of different ideologies are “more likely to carry out violent attacks on the homeland than groups that advocate domestic extremism.”
According to the brief, violent domestic extremism is defined as “activities that violate the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or threaten to endanger human Life; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce civilians; and in so doing, influence government policy, or act to influence government by mass killing, assassination, or kidnapping.”
The assessment, however, does not consider those who “promote political or social positions, political radicalism, use hard-line rhetoric, or ideologically embrace violent means,” which may be protected by the Constitution.
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