Trump signs memo calling for crackdown on alleged 'organized political violence'
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum directing an administration-wide effort aimed at cracking down on alleged "domestic terrorism" and "organized political violence."
He said it was meant to tackle what he claimed was a rise in "bad people" and "anarchists" on the left and the groups he said funded them.
The memorandum instructs the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Treasury to come up with a "strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law."
The memo says the attorney general's office will provide guidance on "domestic terrorist acts," which the memo described as "organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder."
"This guidance shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indicia common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity," the memo says.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller singled out "antifa" as a target the administration is looking to go after, alleging without evidence that "antifa" has been responsible for "riots, the attacks on ICE officers, the doxing campaigns and other political assassinations."
"It is sophisticated as well-funded. It is well-planned. There is really no parallel like this, anything to anything else in the country right now," Miller said. "There is an entire system of feeder organizations that provide money, resources, weapons. And when they're attacking ICE officers, they're attacking federal buildings. Whether isolating public officials for harassment, doxing, intimidation, and ultimately attempted assassination, it is all carefully planned, executed and thought through. It is terrorism on our soil."
Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer "anti-fascist" and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.
FBI Director Kash Patel echoed Miller's claims and warned that the combined forces of the law enforcement and other agencies would "root out this new evil that is perpetrating our criminal activities across our societies." He said the FBI would "follow the money."
Federal law does not allow for U.S. based organizations to be labeled "terrorist" groups, unless they are found to be connected to foreign terror groups.
Trump's memorandum comes after sources said Aakash Singh, a senior official in Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's office, sent a memo to prosecutors in U.S. Attorney's offices around the country telling them to prepare to launch investigations into the Open Society Foundations, a group funded by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.
The letter lists potential charges prosecutors could take under consideration as they prepare to investigate Open Society Foundations, the sources said, ranging from material support to terrorism, arson, wire fraud and RICO, the anti-racketeering statute.
Trump was asked whether a possible investigation into Soros was part of the announced effort against alleged "far-left" terror groups.
"Well, Soros is a name, certainly, that I keep hearing. I don't know, Soros is a name that I hear. I hear a lot of different names. I hear names of some pretty rich people that are radical left people," he said, adding, "they're bad and we're gonna find out if they are funding these things."
"The Open Society Foundations unequivocally condemn terrorism and do not fund terrorism," a group spokesman said in a statement to ABC News.
