Mr. Miller, who did not mention Antifa by name, said he has high confidence in intelligence assessment of the activities. They included strong indicators that the violent protesters had made preparations. Antifa also used encrypted communications as part of the planning.
“Before the protests began, organizers of certain anarchist groups set out to raise bail money, and people who would be responsible to be raising bail money, they set out to recruit medics and medical teams with gear to deploy in anticipation of violent interactions with police,” Mr. Miller said.
“They prepared to commit property damage and directed people who were following them that this should be done selectively and only in wealthier areas or at high-end stores run by corporate entities,” he added.
A New York City police spokeswoman confirmed Mr. Miller’s information and said the operations of the rioters included a complex network of scouts on bicycles who would move ahead of demonstrators and identify locations with minimal police presence. At those locations, extremists were able to easily vandalize or burn vehicles using Molotov cocktails.
Antifa’s leftist agenda calls for supporting so-called social justice movements. Among the liberal-left causes espoused by the group are issues of racism and police misconduct, support for Muslim minorities and backing the transgender rights movement. . .
CPUSA leader Manning Johnson testified to Congress in 1953 that the goal of the front group was never the abolishment of fascism, but rather “the subversion and subsequent overthrow of the United States.”
The National Security Council’s Mr. O’Brien described Antifa foot soldiers as “militant radicals who come into our cities and cross state lines.”
“They’re organized and use Molotov cocktails and fireworks and gas to burn down our cities, especially businesses in minority neighborhoods. It’s got to be stopped,” he said. . .
Antifa also gets support from some academics. Walter F. Heinecke, a University of Virginia associate professor of education, helped secure permits for counterprotests by Antifa and other groups in 2017 against the Unite the Right political rally for white nationalists.
Asked whether he supports the movement, Mr. Heinecke said, “I am against fascism, so if Antifa means against fascism, then generally, yes.”
Mr. Heinecke emphasized that he is “not technically a member of an Antifa organizing group, and I don’t speak for any Antifa organization.”. . .
Harvard Divinity School Professor Cornel R. West has praised Antifa for protecting him and other protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. . .
Andy Ngo, a journalist who was beaten by Antifa activists last year, has closely monitored the activities of the group. He recently wrote that the riots around the country are “glimmers of the full insurrection the far left has been working toward for decades.”
Mobilization and disinformation
The death of Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis was a pretext for launching the Antifa insurgency, he said. “In a matter of hours after the video of Floyd began circulating the internet, militant Antifa cells across the country mobilized to Minnesota to aid Black Lives Matter rioters,” he said.
Mr. Ngo said Antifa supporters have spread disinformation that it is white supremacists and nationalists who are to blame for the rioting. So far, no evidence has emerged linking right-wing extremists to the violence. . .
“One reason is that so many Democrat leaders have children and family members who are active participants in the Marxist movement, with many of them being members of Antifa, insofar as one can be a member,” said Mr. Higgins, the former NSC official.
Jeremiah Ellison, son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, tweeted his support for Antifa on Sunday. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had his daughter arrested in New York with protesters, and Sen. Tim Kaine’s son Woody also was affiliated with Antifa, Mr. Higgins said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, condemned Antifa after its activists sparked riots in Berkeley several years ago.
But in a now-deleted 2018 tweet, Mr. Ellison, then-deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, posted a photograph of an Antifa handbook with the statement that the manual should “strike fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump.”
Asked about the tweet Sunday, Mr. Ellison told reporters that the tweet about Antifa was meaningless.
“It means nothing. Look, I was at a bookstore, and I saw a book,” said Mr. Ellison. “It means nothing.”. . .
Kenneth deGraffenreid, who was deputy national counterintelligence executive during the George W. Bush administration, said the FBI has not been engaged in effective domestic counterintelligence for years.
“The FBI has not had a meaningful domestic counterintelligence capability for many years,” Mr. deGraffenreid said. “They’ve been distracted or politically corrupted.”
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
The planning was clearly scheduled for Memorial Day.
But in a now-deleted 2018 tweet, Mr. Ellison, then-deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, posted a photograph of an Antifa handbook with the statement that the manual should “strike fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump.”
Asked about the tweet Sunday, Mr. Ellison told reporters that the tweet about Antifa was meaningless.
“It means nothing. Look, I was at a bookstore, and I saw a book,” said Mr. Ellison. “It means nothing.”. . .
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LIAR liar, burka on fire!