Trump Justice Department Gears Up For War On Antifa ‘Terrorists'
President Donald Trump and his administration are increasingly blaming antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist group, for violence at protests across the country against police brutality and racism. The president tweeted Sunday that antifa will be labeled a terrorist group, and on Monday he vowed to use the military and the Justice Department to aggressively crack down on “terrorist” protesters.
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General William Barr, is following the president’s lead. Federal prosecutors are gearing up to use available laws, including one a federal judge recently declared unconstitutional, to crack down on violent demonstrations and seem poised to follow an aggressive prosecution model they used against even nonviolent protesters arrested during Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
“The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” Barr said Sunday.
One of Trump’s prominent political allies, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), asked on Twitter whether, now that antifa is being considered a terrorist organization, the U.S. can “hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East.”
But the federal government can’t just treat members of a domestic movement the way they’d treat al Qaeda because the president declares them terrorists via tweet, and there are a limited number of federal laws that apply to specific conduct during protests. Past federal efforts to prosecute alleged rioters have been tossed out by judges or lost at trial.
The fact that Trump and the Justice Department are devoting federal law enforcement resources to investigating antifa ― and publicly declaring the loose organization guilty before the investigation has taken place ― could have a chilling effect on protesters, distract from the racial justice message and, potentially, mire individuals in years-long court proceedings even if they weren’t...
