Nearly seventy years ago, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously declared, “There is no organized crime in America.” From his arrest to his congressional testimony, Hoover continued to deny the existence of the Mafia despite ample evidence to the contrary.
Many have speculated as to why Hoover continued his stubborn refusal. Perhaps, they say, he was trying to avoid the political embarrassment of ignoring the largest criminal network in the country for so long.
Today many are adopting a Hoover-like willful blindness about another violent group: Antifa.
Politicians and pundits are denying that the leftist anarchist group exists, and mocking President Trump’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Representative Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) seemed to transform into Hoover before our eyes, including a entry In which he challenged anyone to “name a member of ‘Antifa’.”
Former House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was widely ridiculed for denying the existence of Antifa.
Others on the left have joined Goldman in making this absurd claim. late night host jimmy kimmelCommitted part of his monologue to reassuring the audience that Antifa is nothing more than a mythical “Chupacabra”. “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is a completely made-up organization.”
i haveTestified before Congress about AntifaRan and wrote columns on the organization for more than a decadeA book discussing antifaIprotestedDeclaring Antifa a terrorist organization because of free speech concerns, but I also know it is very real.
By design, antifa Typical leadership avoids hierarchiesand organizational structures. Antifa was first formed in the 1920s, linked to the Weimar-era German communist group Antifascist Aktion.
Goldman’s demand to name some members is easier said than done, as they identify themselves as members of Antifa. One such student came to my campus and announced thatantifa was winningFollowing his arrest on charges of property destruction.
when there was another radicalArrested after taking an axe.In the congressional office he identified himself as a member of Antifa.
Before 26-year-old Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert planted an IED device outside Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery, he placed stickers that read “Support Your Local Antifa,
Several antifa members have been arrested, including some who claimedbecoming a journalist,
Many protesters belong to Antifa groups with the names “Rose City Antifa” and branches such as Love and Rage and Mexico’s Amor y Rabia. Antifa members have been electedFor the French and European Parliaments.
Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist HandbookWhat some call the “Antifa Bible” makes clear that the group is united in its opposition to free speech. He writes, “The majority of Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or anti-establishment communists.” From that perspective, ‘free speech’ is merely a bourgeois fantasy that is not worth considering.
Law enforcement officials such as former FBI Director Christopher Wray have long dismissed deniers like Goldman. ,antifa is a real thing“Ray said.
The irony is that while many leftists are not denying its existence, they are actually disuniting its members.selling antifa merchandiseFormer Democratic National Committee vice chairman Keith Ellison – now Minnesota’s attorney general – declared that Antifa would “strike fear into the heart” of Trump. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa during protests this summer.
But, as Antifa violence has escalated, Democratic leaders have begun to deny its existence, while Antifa is deploying its signature black hoodies and masks.
Indeed, some liberal activists admit to coordinating violent protests with Antifa groups. For example, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Dwayne Dixon was a member of the radical gun club Redneck Revolt, a group that was recently referenced in a poster quoting Charlie Kirk’s killer as a call to unite the left. The flyers read, “Hey, Fascists! Get caught! The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”
During a panel at Harvard University, Dixon reportedly acknowledged that an antifa-affiliated group had requested his gun club to provide security during the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia: “Earlier that day, as planning for the defense of Charlottesville moved forward, local anarchists from the People of Color Collective … had requested that Justice for a variety of activists Redneck Rebels were expected to assemble to secure the park.”
To deny the existence of any real group is to divert the discussion of increasing violence to the left, because it is these politicians who fuel anger with reckless rhetoric. But they’re not so good at keeping their story straight. Inciting the crowd with claims that democracy is dying and comparing his opponents to Nazis, he denies the existence of a group that politicians like Ellison praise for targeting conservatives.
Hoover refused to acknowledge the existence of the Mafia until dozens of mobsters were found meeting in a farmhouse in Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957.
What’s different is that Antifa has repeatedly had such farmhouse moments, with prosecutors revealing a national movement with self-identifying members. So why the denial? These are shocking forces for some politicians who think they can use the violent group for political gain. They are wrong. Antifa is unlikely to be of much use to establishment liberals once they gain more power.
Until then, Antifa can count on the Goldmans of the world to keep them from denying their existence.
In the film “The Usual Suspects”, the character Verbal Kint offers this explanation for the invisible villain Keyser Soze: “The greatest trick Satan ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at The George Washington University. He is the author of the best-selling book “”.Inalienable Rights: Free Speech in the Age of Anger,
