The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security confirmed this week that the DOJ is investigating the organizers and funders behind the violent riots that have engulfed the country since May.
“We are investigating coordinated, criminal activity—not First Amendment activity—and violence related to riots, destruction of federal property and violence against law enforcement officers,” said DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec on Tuesday.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Monday night that he has “personally” spoken with Attorney General William Barr about the probe.
Wolf said the DOJ has been “targeting and investigating the head of these organizations, [and] the individuals that are paying for these individuals to move across the country.”
The DHS chief noted that 300 rioters have been arrested on federal charges, 100 of whom were from Portland.
“What we know, Tucker, is that we have seen groups and individuals move from Portland to other parts of the country,” Wolf explained, adding that “almost 100” of the arrested rioters in Kenosha were from out of state.
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Wolf didn’t say when the probe started, but his comments come days after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called on the Justice Department to investigate the funding behind the organized riots. Paul, his wife and many other RNC attendees were mobbed and harassed by antifa agitators on the final night of the convention.
“I think we’re going to find out that these people are hired and from out of town specifically in our case. I believe there are people who are going to be involved in the attack on us who were actually paid to come here, are not from Washington D.C., and are sort of paid to be anarchists,” Paul said on Friday.
Wolf also revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is assisting the Justice Department in their probe of the “criminal rioting.”
“We are making sure that the investigations that we are involved in, we are getting that information over to the FBI, to those criminal investigators that are doing their job” he said. “We have seen groups and individuals move from Portland to other parts of the country.”
Wolf added that the violent agitators “are organized.”
“We have seen similar tactics being used from Portland and other cities across the country as well,” he said.
During an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Monday night, President Trump let slip some intelligence he’d heard about a plane full of black clad “thugs” heading to Washington D.C. from “a certain city.”
“We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms—these black uniforms—with gear and this and that,” Trump said.
When asked by Ingraham where this happened, the president declined to say, telling her “it’s under investigation right now.” He went on to divulge that the individual was on the plane “from a certain city” headed to the RNC, last week.
“There were about seven people on the plane like this person,” Trump explained. “And a lot of people on the plane to do big damage.”
The DHS Sec. told Carlson that he wished the investigation was being done in “a little quicker fashion,” but stressed that the president is committed to holding individuals accountable.
He said the investigation should serve as a warning “that if you want to riot, you want to loot, you want to do some of these other criminal acts that we see around the country, there are going to be consequences for that.”
Former federal prosecutor Jim Trusty said back in June that a DOJ investigation into antifa’s financing would eventually result in some “bombshell” indictments.
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