The terrorist organization among us, Antifa, is finally identified as a Domestic Terrorist Organization (DTO) after years of fomenting terror and destruction in American cities. The DTO designation grants law enforcement significant latitude in identifying and engaging Antifa rioters, allowing for their arrest on the spot. Antifa flags and other logos self-identify the members as terrorists and an internal national security threat. Until the DTO official label, Antifa was dealt with as a local law enforcement issue. Not anymore.
Trump Administration Targets Domestic Terrorists
Following the brutal murder of the Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk, by an Antifa-inspired assassin, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) identifying the Antifa organization as a DTO. Just the News explained, “President Donald Trump on Monday [September 22] afternoon formally signed an executive order that designates Antifa as a domestic terror organization, fulfilling a promise he made last week following violent anti-ICE protests and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
The surge in left-wing violence, particularly focusing on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and facilities, makes the president’s EO particularly timely. Trump called out Antifa specifically as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” The order mobilizes all relevant government agencies to use “all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa… including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations.”
The closing phrase is crucial because it holds liable any individuals who provide the money to support Antifa. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out when Antifa rioters are carrying professionally lettered signs, wearing new gas masks of the same brand, and bail money when arrested. Furthermore, rioters arriving in buses with pre-staged fireworks and bricks are not a spontaneous demonstration of local discontent; it’s a calculated, logistically supported rent-a-mob operation.
In its exposé of the supporters of domestic terrorism, the Capital Research Center (CRS) observed, “Since 2016, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), now run with his son Alexander, has poured over $80 million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence.” This money supports Antifa and similar organizations whose sole purpose is to destroy America’s democratic and capitalistic way of life. CRS explains, “The evidence is stark: Open Society has sent millions of dollars into U.S.-based organizations that engage in ‘direct actions’ that the FBI defines as domestic terrorism.”
To fortify and make actionable President Trump’s EO, the president issued on September 25, the National Security Memorandum Seven (NSPM-7) for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. The subject of NSPM-7 is Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. What the NSPM-7 does is to define the terrorist behaviors of which Antifa is guilty but also opens the aperture for prosecution of all domestic organizations that use terror to achieve political or ideological aims. Additionally, NSPM-7 outlines a national strategy to “investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” The responsibility for executing the tasks associated with NSPM-7 will be the “National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices.”
The value of NSPM-7 lies in its detailed description of the obligations assigned to each addressee and the outcomes for which they will be accountable. Most importantly, the memorandum directs, “The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall designate domestic terrorism a national priority area and develop appropriate grant programs to allocate funding for law enforcement partners to detect, prevent, and protect against threats arising from this area.” Defeating domestic terrorists and the organizations that support domestic terrorists’ activities is, at long last, a national security imperative.
NSPM-7 and the designation of Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization establish a national security strategy with a focus internally on terrorist organizations and those who provide the funding. If US domestic institutions fall to the attacks by internal terrorist assaults, what China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea do will be of little consequence. America must first rid its own house of domestic threats to deal effectively with external foreign adversaries. The Trump administration has taken up the challenge, but it will take an all-of-government effort to be successful.
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The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
