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Can Trump designate Antifa as terrorist group? What FBI had said after Charlottesville clashes
In 2020, Donald Trump had also announced on X that the US government would be designating 'antifa' as a domestic terrorist group.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that the anti-fascist Antifa movement would be targeted as a ‘terrorist organization’.
“I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, while stating he would be ‘designating’ Antifa as a terrorist organization.
When Trump had initially floated the idea of such a designation for Antifa in 2020, legal experts had said that such a step lacked a basis in law, would be hard to execute, and raised free-speech concerns, given that subscription to an ideology is not generally considered criminal, Reuters reported.
His announcement comes after Charlie Kirk's killing, for which Trump had blamed the ‘radical left’. Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah native, who has been charged with the Turning Point USA founder's murder, became ‘more pro-gay and trans rights oriented,’ the Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray said, citing Robinson's mother.
Notably, in 2020, Trump had also announced on X that the US government would be designating 'antifa' as a domestic terrorist group.
Who are the Antifa?
Antifa members see themselves as part of a protest tradition that goes back to opposition groups in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, before World War II. US Antifa, meanwhile, can trace its roots back to antiracists, who mobilized in 1980s against racist skinheads, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis, as per the Library of Congress.
Also Read | White House links 'left-wing terror' movement to Charlie Kirk killing, vows to take it down
Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon, which was founded in 2007, is the oldest US group which uses ‘antifa’ in its moniker. The group gained prominence in the US after violent clashes between white supremacists and their opponents, including Antifa supporters, at Charlottesville, in August 2017, according to the Library of Congress.
Why FBI didn't designate Antifa as terrorists
The FBI had in the past admitted that Antifa and other extremists were subjects of ongoing domestic terrorism investigations. However, it declined to designate these organizations as ‘domestic terrorist organization’.
“Doing so may infringe on First Amendment-protected free speech—belonging to an ideological group in and of itself is not a crime in the United States,” as per the Library of Congress. Further, given the decentralized nature of Antifa, law enforcement designations of it as a singular group might prove to be tough.
Reuters, when reporting on Trump's decision on Wednesday, also cited experts to make the point that “Antifa is a loosely organized ideological movement without a clear leadership structure or hierarchy.”
Notably, then FBI Director Christopher Ray, in a July 2019 Congressional testimony said “the FBI does not investigate ideology; it investigates violence.”
