Feds investigate BLM protest leaders
Nimble groups suspected of providing funding
The Justice Department launched a criminal inquiry into the leadership and financing of protests against police abuse that have roiled American cities as the Black Lives Matter movement has become a political flashpoint in the contentious presidential campaign.
Federal authorities said Tuesday they are not targeting free speech rights, but “coordinated, criminal activity ... and violence related to riots, destruction of federal property and violence against law enforcement officers.”
The acknowledgment by the Justice Department followed remarks by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, who on Monday disclosed the Justice inquiry as “targeting” leaders of organizations and those who might be funding their movement “across the country.”
“What we know ... is that we have seen groups and individuals move from Portland to other parts of the country,” Wolf said on Fox News.
Asked why leaders of Antifa, a loosely organized far-left ideology, and Black Lives Matter, formed in part to call attention to violence against Black communities, had not been arrested, Wolf said: “This is something I talk to the AG (William Barr) personally about. And I know that they are working on it.”
Portland, Oregon, has seen almost daily demonstrations since George Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25.
“The cause of all this,” Wolf said, “is local officials and state officials not taking this seriously enough from day one.”
In a scathing Monday letter to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Wolf claimed the city’s “inaction has fostered an environment that has fueled senseless violence and destruction night after night.”
“For more than three months, Portland has become the epicenter of crime and chaos, with rioters attacking government buildings with the intention of burning them to the ground,” Wolf said.
Wolf ’s comments were prompted by Wheeler’s Aug. 28 letter to President Donald Trump, rejecting federal assistance.
“On behalf of the city of Portland: No thanks,” Wheeler wrote.
Trump seized on the unrest to promote a “law-and-order” campaign theme. Trump took that campaign to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday where the community has been reeling from separate demonstrations related to the August shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back in an encounter with local police.
Before his Wisconsin trip, Trump stoked controversy by refusing to condemn the actions of a 17-year-old accused in the fatal shootings of two Kenosha protesters in the days after Blake was wounded.
Trump on Monday publicly embraced a defense attorney’s account that the accused shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, acted in self-defense.
Referring to cellphone video of the incident, Trump said Rittenhouse, armed with a rifle, was “trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like” and said that protesters “violently attacked him.”
Rittenhouse was charged with five felonies and a misdemeanor after shooting three people on Aug. 25, two of them fatally.
“For more than three months, Portland has become the epicenter of crime and chaos, with rioters attacking government buildings with the intention of burning them to the ground.” Chad Wolf Acting Homeland Security Secretary