DHS Secretary: Feds Investigating BLM, Antifa Leaders Over Violence

In an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Monday night, Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf assured viewers that the Trump administration is taking the violence roiling several American cities extremely seriously. Asked point blank why the Department of Justice can’t begin charging the heads of Black Lives Matter and Antifa with the same charges they brought against Mafia organizations in the 1990s, Wolf said that there were discussions within the federal government about doing just that.

“Do you think the Department of Homeland Security is getting the help it needs from the Justice Department?” Carlson asked. “Why haven’t we seen the leaders of Antifa and BLM arrested and charged with conspiracy under RICO like the heads of the mafia families were?”

“Well, this is something that I have talked to the AG personally about,” Wolf replied. “I know that they are working on it. Look, we have seen about 300 arrests across this country regarding civil unrest and protesting, violent protesting and I would say, criminal protesting.

“I know the Department of Justice has charged about 74, 75 individuals there in Portland with different federal crimes,” he continued. “We will continue to see how those investigations are going. Department of Justice is also targeting and investigating the head of these organizations, the individuals that are paying for these individuals to move across the country.”

Wolf said that this was no quasi-innocent situation where passionate rioters are simply paying for their own bus tickets into town.

“We have seen groups and individuals move from Portland to other parts of the country,” Wolf said. “We had about 175 arrests in Kenosha, almost 100 of them were from out of state. So, we know they are moving around. We have seen them in D.C., in Sacramento, and elsewhere. They are organized. We have seen similar tactics being used from Portland and other cities across the country as well. So, we know that there is organization, I know the Department of Justice is also looking at that as well.”

“You are not allowed to fund crime,” Carlson noted. “We have domestic terrorism on a greater scale than we have had in my lifetime, and the funders of this have not been exposed by the federal government and they haven’t been punished and I’m confused as to why.”

“Again, I would say that the Department of Justice, who has the lead in all those investigations, are certainly moving as quickly as possible,” Wolf said. “Again, it is something that I have talked with the attorney general about, almost on a weekly basis. The Department of Homeland Security, we are doing our role. We are making sure that the investigations that we are involved in, we are getting that information over to the Department of Justice, to the FBI, to those criminal investigators that are doing their job.”

Well, these are promising words from the Trump administration. Let’s hope that’s not all they are.