A man with an Antifa badge walks with Detroit Detroit Will Breathe members and other organizations as they march through the city of Detroit on Wednesday, November 4, 2020 while demanding the counting of all votes for the 2020 elections.
A group of Antifa protesters rally outside of the John E. Moss Federal Building in downtown Sacramento on Jan. 20, 2021.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump says he is "designating" antifa as a major terrorist organization following the Sept. 10 slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

But what is the anti-fascist movement, known collectively as antifa? And what does Trump designating a terrorist organization mean?

Authorities have not confirmed any direct links between Kirk’s accused killer, Tyler James Robinson, and antifa, which is more of a broad political concept than an actual organization with members, leadership or a headquarters that can be targeted, experts say.

But Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other administration officials have repeatedly blamed left-leaning groups for stirring up hostility towards conservatives that they say contributed to Kirk's assassination. Although the investigation is ongoing, authorities have said Robinson expressed anti-fascist views and killed Kirk because he said he “had enough of his hatred.” (Many on the left have noted Kirk's statements such as lamenting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and calling transgender people "a throbbing middle finger to God.")

Trump supporters praised his move. But critics – including some former counterterrorism officials and extremism experts − said it's an effort to undermine free speech protections and criminalize the actions of groups that oppose the president.

What is antifa?

According to the Congressional Research Service, “antifa” refers to individuals who “view themselves as part of a protest tradition that arcs back to opposition groups in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy prior to World War II.”

CRS, the independent research arm of Congress, also noted in a June 2020 report that “the U.S. antifa movement appears to be decentralized, consisting of independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals."

Although antifa tenets "can echo the principles of anarchism, socialism, and communism," the CRS report said, adherents can also support a broad range of other causes. That includes "environmentalism, the rights of indigenous populations, and gay rights."

A broad array of tactics and targets

Antifa tactics have varied widely, including peaceful protests, organizing, information campaigns and mutual aid, as well as more confrontational and at times illegal direct action. That includes setting fires, damaging property and physically confronting or attacking law enforcement.

In the United States, much of antifa activity has been “reciprocal radicalization at the micro-level” in which protesters on the left engage in standoffs – and sometimes violent clashes − with extremists on the right like the Proud Boys, according to a November 2021 report by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

In the 1980s, antifa groups were mostly antiracists mobilizing against the activities of racistskinheads, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis.

Founded in 2007, the Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon, is the oldest U.S. group to use “antifa” in its moniker, according to the CRS.

Violence 'pales in comparison' to other extremists

Antifa groups gained particular prominence following violent clashes between white supremacists and their opponents, including antifa activists, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017.

“By certain metrics, such as human casualties and frequency of attacks, the violence committed by (antifa) actors in the past decade pales in comparison to other categories of violent extremists,” such as racially and ethnically motivated, and anti-government, violent extremists, said the GWU report, titled, “Anarchist/Left-Wing Violent Extremism in America: Trends in Radicalization, Recruitment, and Mobilization.”

“Nevertheless, this dynamic is subject to change, and ongoing trends in American society could lead to increased frequency and lethality of (antifa) attacks," the report said.

What did Trump do against antifa?

In a Sept. 17 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said:

"I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.”

Trump said he would also be strongly recommending that “those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.”

The president indicated his support for designating antifa as a domestic terror organization earlier in the week, prompting the House of Representatives to expedite legislation by a conservative Republican lawmaker to do just that.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who introduced the legislation on Jan. 9, announced on Sept. 11 that she had “just received word from the Speaker that he is fully supporting my bill to designate ANTIFA as a terrorist organization, and it will be placed in the State Department reauthorization bill that will be going through committee this week.”

Luna’s legislation cites multiple instances of violence allegedly committed or instigated by antifa across the United States including riots in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd, resulting in what she said was billions of dollars in damage and the assault of law enforcement officers.

Luna’s bill said that in May 2020, the Department of Justice formally labeled antifa violence as domestic terrorism.

Can Trump actually designate Antifa as a terrorist organization?

It’s not clear from Trump’s social media post exactly what legal designation he has in mind for antifa. When a group like Hamas is labeled a foreign terrorist organization, the government can freeze its assets and make it a crime to provide material support, like money, to the group.

Javed Ali, a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official, told USA TODAY that it's unclear at the moment if Trump's statement is rhetorical "or actually has some legal or policy foundation behind it.”

The only list of designated terrorist groups maintained by the U.S. government is the Foreign Terrorist Organization managed by the State Department. And under U.S. law, Ali said, any group considered as an Foreign Terrorist Organization “has to be based overseas, and engage in terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.”

The GWU Program on Extremism report notes the “infeasibility of designating a domestic ideological movement as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The FBI defines domestic terrorism as acts of illegal violence committed in the country by individuals or groups "without any foreign direction, and appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion," the CRS says. With the U.S. government’s loose definition of antifa encompassing anarchists and those holding other violent extremist ideologies on the left, it meets that definition of “domestic terrorism.”

The FBI has confirmed that antifa and affiliated groups are subjects of ongoing domestic terrorism investigations. But the agency hasn't designated any “domestic terrorist organizations.” That's because federal law only includes a way to designate foreign terrorist organizations.

No comparable legal authority exists for domestic groups, the Harvard Law Review said in a May 2023 report. Also, the CRS noted, “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."

Apart from a possible Foreign Terrorist Organization designation against antifa, Ali said, the Trump administration may be considering how to achieve the same result through an executive order.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is antifa? Trump wants group designated as a terrorist organization

Reporting by Josh Meyer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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