President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday officially designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
The order comes after Trump and his administration officials have pledged to target “radical left” organizations following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10.
“Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” the executive order reads. “It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.”
The executive order claims that antifa, which is a decentralized, left-wing movement of loosely knit networks, “recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday during a White House press briefing before the executive order was signed that the move would be coming soon and was “something the president campaigned on, because we have seen a rise in violence perpetuated by antifa, radical people across this country who subscribe to this group.”
Leavitt continued, “We will also be, most importantly, looking at who is funding Antifa and who is funding these other violent left-wing groups that we’ve seen perpetuate so much crime and mayhem across our country.”
Trump had previously expressed openness to declaring antifa, which is short for antifascist, a terrorist organization, saying it was “something I would do,” while speaking to reporters at the White House on Sept. 15.
It’s not the first time Trump has sought to designate the group as a domestic terrorist organization, as he supported doing so during his first administration amid protests over the death of George Floyd.
HOW THE ANTIFA MOVEMENT HAS METASTASIZED
During a video address following Kirk’s assassination, Trump pledged his administration would “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals, Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
