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What we know about the extremists taking part in riots across the US
Law enforcement and federal officials say outside elements from both far-right and far-left groups are helping fuel the violent and damaging confrontations that have marred protests across the country in recent days, despite President Donald Trump's focus just on Antifa and the far left.
www.cnn.com
What we do and don't know about the extremists taking part in riots across the US
CNN)Law enforcement and federal officials say outside elements from both far-right and far-left groups are helping fuel the violent and damaging confrontations that have marred protests across the country in recent days, despite President Donald Trump's focus just on Antifa and the far left.
Although interference in this way may be happening, federal and local officials have yet to provide evidence to the public.
Local and federal officials are still trying to quantify how significant a role the outside groups are playing in the unrest that has spread to cities all over the US. Officials are scrambling to identify the affiliations of the extremists taking part in the riots, property destruction and attacks on police, and allegations of foreign influence stoking the unrest online are being actively tracked.
Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Sunday that ultimately the catalyst of the protests was the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was held down at the neck by white police officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter on Friday. But the state is looking at data from arrests and human intelligence that points to some outside influence seeking to capitalize on the situation and create unrest.
"I certainly think I want to believe it is outside more and that might go to the problem that we have of saying 'it can't be Minnesotans'," Walz said at a Sunday morning press conference. "I know there are outside folks in there whether they are the predominance or whether leading or not." But the catalyst, he said, was the murder of George Floyd and that was "our problem."
"Saying there are outside forces is not to deflect and pretend we don't have that," Walz said.
The President and his top officials have blamed far-left extremists for the violence. Trump tweeted Sunday that the United States would designate Antifa, which is short for anti-fascists, as a terrorist organization, and Attorney General William Barr also singled out the group in a statement denouncing the violence as domestic terrorism, announcing federal law enforcement would use its network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to apprehend and charge those taking part in the violent confrontations.
The US government has no existing legal authority to label a wholly domestic group in the manner it currently designates foreign terrorist organizations.
Federal law enforcement sees extremists across spectrum
While Trump and Barr have focused on Antifa, the FBI and other agencies are tracking groups from both the extremist right and left involved in the riots and attacks on police.
Federal law enforcement officials tell CNN they are aware of organized groups who are seeking to carry out the property destruction and violence, using the cover of the legitimate protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Those domestic extremist groups include anarchists, anti-government groups often associated with far-right extremists and white supremacy causes, and far-left extremists who identify with anti-fascist ideology.
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