NYT Wonders: Can Trump Declare Antifa a ‘Domestic Terror’ Group?

Good question. Interesting timing, to say the least. 

Late yesterday, Donald Trump followed through on his pledge to designate Antifa a “domestic terror” organization. The executive order directed the Department of Justice and other ‘relevant’ federal law enforcement to prioritize investigations and prosecutions to dismantle the violent radical-Left groups:

Driving the news: Trump’s order accuses antifa of coordinating efforts to “obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.”

• It directs all relevant federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” antifa operations.

Zoom in: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Monday that the U.S. had seen “a rise in violence, perpetuated by antifa, radical people across this country who subscribe to this group.”

• Jackson said in her emailed statement that antifa “is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that uses violence and terrorism to try and accomplish their sick goals.”

Does an executive order do much in a legal sense? Not really, although it does have obvious practical implications. The label doesn’t mean much more than a political argument for the directive to prioritize Antifa for investigation. As the chief executive, the president has the authority to set such policies and to communicate his priorities to federal law enforcement. The label sums up his reasoning, and Antifa’s nexus to violent street actions certainly supports that opinion. However, the DoJ and other “relevant” agencies still have to operate with all of the same restrictions on law enforcement, such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause limiting what they can do in any one case.

Those choices also come with political accountability. If people don’t agree with Trump and his law-enforcement priorities, they can vote for different leadership in 2028. Trump can’t run again — no, really — but it seems very likely that the next GOP nominee will run as a continuation candidate on Trump’s priorities. That includes a crackdown on domestic political violence, and that position will likely still be popular three years from  now, given that the radical Left still seems enamored with such acts. (The Luigi Mangione Fetish Society is a very good example.)

In that sense, the question of the “designation” is pointless. But it’s not the first time this has come up, which makes the New York Times’ “here are the facts” response about four years too late:

Can the U.S. designate domestic groups as terrorists?

No.

Federal law empowers the executive branch to deem overseas groups “foreign terrorist organizations.” The law gives such groups a due process right to hearings to challenge the designation. If the designation stands, the status allows the government to freeze such groups’ assets and makes it a crime to provide material support to them.

But there is no equivalent domestic terrorism law, noted Mary McCord, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division during the tail end of the Obama administration and opening months of the first Trump administration.

The NYT goes on to dismiss the idea that Antifa is an organization at all, which seems at best premature. The Times assures us that Antifa “does not have a leader, an initiation process, membership rolls, a headquarters, a bank account or a centralized structure.” How do we know that, though? Has the NYT or any other media organization bothered to investigate Antifa to find out whether that’s true? Democrat politicians have asserted these claims, as have some within the Antifa umbrella itself. 

Given the violence connected to Antifa and their violent rhetoric, wouldn’t an investigation by federal law enforcement be prudent to establish these claims? Or refute them? Because I’m certainly not going to take Adam Schiff’s word as verifiable Gospel on this point, and not the NYT’s either. 

But even without that, the Department of Justice had no problem with “domestic terror” designations under Merrick Garland — and the NYT had no problem with it then, either. The DoJ and FBI under Joe Biden’s AG designated the following as potential domestic-terror threats at various times:

• Proud Boys
• January 6 rioters
• Parents objecting to woke policies and curricula at school-board meetings
• Traditional Catholics
• Pro-life demonstrators

This is not a comprehensive list, either. In a similar vein, the Biden administration’s State Department and HHS treated debate and dissent as a national-security threat by claiming it to be “misinformation.” They weaponized the Global Engagement Center and its allies to target, silence, and deplatform its critics and opponents. And of course, the Biden DoJ did its level best to imprison Trump himself as Biden’s chief political opponent.

Did the NYT run any “here are the facts” when the DoJ and Biden administration did the same thing and worse, on much less evidence?

It doesn’t much matter what Trump ‘designates’ Antifa to be. He can call them brownshirts, which would certainly be accurate, or Happy Funtime Thugs, if you prefer. What actually matters is the new focus on their actions, past present and future, and the enforcement of laws that anyone within the Antifa umbrella has broken. Let’s get some real answers, rather than the same “oh, nothing to see here” coverage from the Protection Racket Media that we got about Joe Biden’s senility. 

The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features:

•  Jimmy Kimmel got suspended, then unsuspended, then held in limbo. 
• Andrew Malcolm discusses whether this is a free speech issue or a market correction to a bad product. 
• Also, is this yet another way in which Democrats are paving the way for a 2026 defeat? 

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!

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