FBI director says antifa is an ideology, not an organization

WASHINGTON — FBI Direc­tor Chris Wray told law­mak­ers Thurs­day that antifa is an ide­ol­o­gy, not an orga­ni­za­tion, deliv­er­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that puts him at odds with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who has said he would des­ig­nate it a ter­ror group.

Hours after the hear­ing, Trump took to Twit­ter to chas­tise his FBI direc­tor for his state­ments on antifa and on Russ­ian elec­tion inter­fer­ence, two themes that dom­i­nat­ed a con­gres­sion­al hear­ing on threats to the Amer­i­can homeland.

Refer­ring to antifa, the pres­i­dent wrote: “And I look at them as a bunch of well fund­ed ANARCHISTS & THUGS who are pro­tect­ed because the Comey/Mueller inspired FBI is sim­ply unable, or unwill­ing, to find their fund­ing source, and allows them to get away with “mur­der”. LAW & ORDER!”

The Twit­ter barbs thrust Wray again into a spot­light that he has spent three years try­ing to avoid after his pre­de­ces­sor, James Comey, became entan­gled in pol­i­tics before being ulti­mate­ly fired. Though Wray said as recent­ly as Thurs­day that the FBI made unac­cept­able mis­takes dur­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion into ties between the Trump cam­paign and Rus­sia, Trump nonethe­less has inter­mit­tent­ly lashed out at Wray over the pace of fix­ing those prob­lems and con­tin­ues to regard his intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty with sus­pi­cion because of the Rus­sia probe.

Wray did not dis­pute in his tes­ti­mo­ny Thurs­day that antifa activists were a seri­ous con­cern, say­ing that antifa was a “real thing” and that the FBI had under­tak­en “any num­ber of prop­er­ly pred­i­cat­ed inves­ti­ga­tions into what we would describe as vio­lent anar­chist extrem­ists,” includ­ing into indi­vid­u­als who iden­ti­fy with antifa.

But, he said, “It’s not a group or an orga­ni­za­tion. It’s a move­ment or an ideology.”

That char­ac­ter­i­za­tion con­tra­dicts the depic­tion from Trump, who in June sin­gled out antifa — short for “anti-fas­cists” and an umbrel­la term for far-left-lean­ing mil­i­tant groups — as respon­si­ble for the vio­lence that fol­lowed George Floyd’s death. Trump tweet­ed that the U.S. would be des­ig­nat­ing antifa as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, even though such des­ig­na­tions are his­tor­i­cal­ly reserved for for­eign groups and antifa lacks the hier­ar­chi­cal struc­ture of for­mal organizations.

The hear­ing before the House Home­land Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee — estab­lished after the Sept. 11 attacks to con­front the threat of inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism — focused almost entire­ly on domes­tic mat­ters, includ­ing vio­lence by white suprema­cists as well as anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ists. The top­ics under­scored the shift of atten­tion by law enforce­ment at a time of intense divi­sions and polar­iza­tion inside the country.

But one area where for­eign threats were addressed was in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and Russia’s attempts to inter­fere in the campaign.

Wray sought to make clear the scope of the threats the coun­try faces while resist­ing law­mak­ers’ attempts to steer him into polit­i­cal­ly charged state­ments. When asked whether extrem­ists on the left or the right posed the big­ger threat, he piv­ot­ed instead to an answer about how solo actors, or so-called “lone wolves,” with easy access to weapons were a pri­ma­ry concern.

“We don’t real­ly think of threats in terms of left, right, at the FBI. We’re focused on the vio­lence, not the ide­ol­o­gy,” he said later.

The FBI direc­tor said racial­ly moti­vat­ed vio­lent extrem­ists, such as white suprema­cists, have been respon­si­ble for the most lethal attacks in the U.S. in recent years. But this year the most lethal vio­lence has come from anti-gov­ern­ment activists, such as anar­chists and mili­tia-types, Wray said.

Wray also affirmed the intel­li­gence community’s assess­ment of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the Novem­ber elec­tion, which he said was tak­ing the form of for­eign influ­ence cam­paigns aimed at sow­ing dis­cord and sway­ing pub­lic opin­ion as well as efforts to den­i­grate Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Joe Biden.

He said that the U.S. had not yet seen tar­get­ing of elec­tion infra­struc­ture like in 2016, but efforts to sow doubt about the election’s integri­ty are a seri­ous con­cern, he said.

“What con­cerns me the most is the steady drum­beat of mis­in­for­ma­tion and sort of ampli­fi­ca­tion of small­er cyber intru­sions,” Wray said. “I wor­ry that they will con­tribute over time to a lack of con­fi­dence of Amer­i­can vot­ers and cit­i­zens in the valid­i­ty of their vote.”

“I think that would be a per­cep­tion,” Wray added, “not a real­i­ty. I think Amer­i­cans can and should have con­fi­dence in our elec­tion sys­tem and cer­tain­ly in our democ­ra­cy. But I wor­ry that peo­ple will take on a feel­ing of futil­i­ty because of all of the noise and con­fu­sion that’s generated.”

Trump has resist­ed the idea of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence aimed at ben­e­fit­ing his cam­paign and has been eager, along with oth­er admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials, to talk about intel­li­gence offi­cials’ assess­ment that Chi­na prefers that Trump lose to Biden.

He respond­ed on that front Thurs­day evening, tweet­ing: “But Chris, you don’t see any activ­i­ty from Chi­na, even though it is a FAR greater threat than Rus­sia, Rus­sia, Rus­sia. They will both, plus oth­ers, be able to inter­fere in our 2020 Elec­tion with our total­ly vul­ner­a­ble Unso­licit­ed (Coun­ter­feit?) Bal­lot Scam. Check it out!”

Though intel­li­gence offi­cials said in a state­ment last month that Chi­na prefers that Trump lose, they appeared to stop short of accus­ing Bei­jing of direct­ly inter­fer­ing in the elec­tion in hopes of sway­ing the outcome.

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