Blue State AG Claims Antifa Doesn’t Exist After Overtly Supporting The Group In The Previous
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is claiming that Antifa, the decentralized far-left extremist group that was recently classified as a terrorist organization by President Donald Trump, does not exist. He has done so despite the existence of an infamous photo in which he openly supported the group.
Short for “antifascist,” the black-bloc group operates hundreds of chapters across the United States.
Antifa is most infamous for their activities in the Pacific Northwest, where dozens members in cities like Portland and Seattle have been arrested for acts of political violence. Dozens of Antifa members were charged for setting fire to federal buildings in downtown Portland during the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, the murder of a Trump supporter by a self-identified Antifa member in August of that year, and numerous acts of arson during the peak of unrest in 2020 and 2021.
Antifa cells have also been linked to several riots, bombing and acts of violence in Europe, prompting President Trump to state during a press conference last week that he will move to designate the group as a foreign terrorist organization. This would give prosecutors enhanced tools to prosecute members, as well as anyone found to be financing their activities.
Supporters claim that there is no uniform Antifa organization, though localized groups fly the same flag, dress similarly and participate in similar operations. For example, members in Portland, Oregon, belong to Rose City Antifa, a group with logos and active social media accounts.
While speaking with MSNBC, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison became the latest high-profile Democrat to claim the group doesn’t exist. “So the fact that there is no, I mean, nobody even knows what it is. The first person ever heard use the word Antifa was Donald J. Trump, when he was going on about how there were good people on both sides of Charlottesville,” the attorney general claimed.
“That’s the first time I ever heard anyone use the term. So now it’s this amorphous thing, and if nobody’s really Antifa, then everybody could be. And the reason you can’t find them is because they’re just that crafty.”
Despite the fact that Antifa’s activities were well documented long before the Charlottesville incident in 2017, Ellison himself praised the group in a since-deleted social media post in 2018.
The post included a photo of himself holding a copy of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, authored by Rutgers University “antifascist historian” Mark Bray. The caption stated that the book would “strike fear in the heart” of President Donald Trump.
Ellison praised Antifa in a now-deleted X post in 2018
Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Councilman Jeremiah Ellison, also declared his support for Antifa during the George Floyd Riots in 2020.
“I hereby declare, officially, my support for ANTIFA,” the younger Ellison posted on X. “Unless someone can prove to me ANTIFA is behind the burning of black and immigrant owned businesses in my ward, I’ll keep focusing on stopping the white power terrorist THE ARE ACTUALLY ATTACKING US!”
Ellison’s apparent amnesia comes as President Donald Trump recently signaled that he plans to build on his domestic terrorism designation by designating Antifa as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
According to the State Department, FTOs are foreign organizations designated as terrorist in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It is unlawful for a U.S. citizen or any individual subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to a designated FTO, which includes such groups as Hamas, al Qaeda, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and several drug cartels, among other groups.