Below is my column on the rise of Antifa deniers in Washington. Once embraced and even marketed on the left, Antifa has become the group that must not be named as political violence rises across the country. It does not matter that radicals identify as Antifa, coordinate protests, carry Antifa flags, wear signature clothing, and espouse the same ideas from the “Antifa handbook.” There have even been people elected as Antifa representatives. Yet, the current spin is to pretend that they do not exist as a single organization to deflect the debate over violence on the left. Even with the past and current FBI directors saying that they exist as a group, politicians are mocking those who object to Antifa, even journalists and others targeted by its members.
This week, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) claimed that “nobody” knows what the left-wing terrorist organization Antifa is and that it does not exist. However, he previously promoted the “Antifa Handbook” in 2018 and praised the group as terrifying Trump. Now, however, he has joined the chorus of Antifa denials as political violence rises around the country.
Here is the column:
Roughly seventy years ago, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously declared, “There is no organized crime in America.” Hoover’s stubborn denial of the existence of the mafia continued despite ample evidence to the contrary, from arrests to congressional testimony.
Many have speculated on why Hoover maintained his stubborn denial. Perhaps, they say, he was trying to avoid the political embarrassment of long ignoring the single largest criminal network in the country.
Many today seem to be adopting a Hoover-esque wilful blindness about another violent group: Antifa.
Politicians and pundits are denying that the left-wing anarchist group exists, mocking President Trump’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) seemed to morph into Hoover before our very eyes, including a posting in which he challenged anyone to “name one member of ‘Antifa.’”
Others on the left have joined Goldman in this absurd claim. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel committed part of his monologue to assure viewers that Antifa is no more than a mythical “chupacabra.” “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is an entirely made-up organization.”
I have testified about Antifa before Congress, run columns on the organization for over a decade, and wrote a book discussing Antifa. I did oppose declaring Antifa a terrorist organization due to free speech concerns, but I also know that it is very real.
By design, Antifa avoids typical leadership hierarchies and organizational structures. Antifa was first created in the 1920s, associated with the Weimar-era German communist group Antifaschistische Aktion.
It is easy to satisfy Goldman’s demand in naming some members, since they self-identify as members of Antifa. One such student came from my campus and proclaimed that Antifa was winning after his arrest for property destruction.
When another radical was arrested after taking an axe to a congressional office, he self-identified as a member of Antifa.
Before Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, implanted an IED device outside of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery, he put up stickers reading “support your local Antifa.”
Numerous Antifa members have been arrested, including some who claimed to be journalists.
Many protesters belong to Antifa groups that have names like “Rose City Antifa” and offshoots like Love and Rage and Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. Antifa members have been elected to the French and European parliaments.
Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” called by some the “Antifa bible,” explains that the group is united in its opposition to free speech. “Most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists,” he writes. “From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
Law enforcement officials like former FBI Director Christopher Wray have long debunked the deniers like Goldman. “Antifa is a real thing,” said Wray.
Ironically, when many on the left are not denying its existence, they are rallying their members or actually selling Antifa merchandise. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now the Minnesota attorney general — proclaimed that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer.
But ,with Antifa violence on the rise, Democratic leaders have gone back to denying its existence even as Antifa deploys its signature black hoodies and masks.
Indeed, some liberal activists admit to having coordinated 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 recently referenced in flyers quoting the assassin of Charlie Kirk to rally the left. The flyers read, “Hey, Fascist! Catch! The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”
During a panel at Harvard University, Dixon reportedly admitted that an Antifa-linked group requested his gun club to provide security during the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia: “Prior to that day, as the planning for the defense of Charlottesville proceeded, the local Anarchist People of Color Collective … had requested that Redneck Revolt be present to secure Justice Park for a wide variety of activists who were expected to assemble.”
The denial of the existence of an actual group is meant to deflect the discussion of the rising violence from the left, as these same politicians fuel the rage with reckless rhetoric. But they’re not so good at keeping their story straight. While whipping up the mob with claims that democracy is dying and comparing their opponents to Nazis, they deny the existence of the very group that politicians like Ellison praise for targeting conservatives.
Hoover declined to admit the mafia existed until, on November 14, 1957, dozens of mobsters were found meeting in a farmhouse in Apalachin, New York.
What is different is that Antifa has repeatedly had such farmhouse moments, with prosecutions revealing a national movement with self-identified members. So why the denial? These are the shock troops for some politicians who think that they can use the violent group for political advantage. They are mistaken. Antifa is unlikely to have much use for establishment liberals once it gains more power.
Until then, Antifa can count on the Goldmans of the world to give them cover in denying that they exist.
In the film “The Usual Suspects,” the character Verbal Kint offered this explanation for the invisible villain Keyser Söze: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.
Antifa are the Democrats Brownshirts! The Democrat Party are the German socialists 1930’s!
They are fighting a Civil War, their 2nd!
Trumplicans are creating concentration camps and deploying masked men in unmarked vehicles to kidnap people off the street.
Mind that the Brownshirts were the facists, it’s not possible for Antifa to have Brownshirts.
Antifa is circling the drain. After the final drain the stopper goes in.
the Democrat Party is a Party of Fascism!
Time to Defund them…end federal aid to their cities, states, non-profits and colleges(including loan backing
Outlaw their public unions
Democrats WANT failure for America…that is why they imported illegals!
Ellison is as stupid, compromised and hypocritical as Democrats come. And that is an understated description.
Jonathan, great piece. I read all your posts/articles. I have a suggestion. Somehow we need to get your information into CatGPT and GROK. I’ve noticed both are just mouth pieces for the left as they mainly quote the mainstream media. This is dangerous!
Thanks
Agreed – Go ‘On-Chain’
The Left has lied itself into a position of irrelevance. For non-entities like Goldman and Ellison, the party-mandated lies they parrot are the most intelligent things that come out of their mouths. But fewer and fewer care what they or their media megaphones babble anymore. Patel doesn’t care, nor Bondi or Rubio. Trump certainly doesn’t care. The Left has lost control of the narrative, and can no longer shape policy. Right now you’re probably better off taking a ride in a Venezuelan speedboat than hanging out with Antifa cosplayers.
Of course, their existence could be denied.
We could come up with a more accommodating name for their collective reference: anti-fact? anti-fair? anti-faith? anti-faultless? anti-facilitating? And their congressional defender could be Dan Pyriteman.
Lin
Their organization follows the single cell method of terror organization. No member knows more than two or three direct cell comrades so if captured they have no knowledge of other cells. That’s why you’re hearing of California or Portland cells providing training for others. It’s truly a terror organization.
???
Your two sentences, “No member knows more than two or three direct cell comrades so if captured they have no knowledge of other cells” and “That’s why you’re hearing of California or Portland cells providing training for others,” don’t seem to jive.
But I agree with a “terror” association. Thanks.
Decentralized
The leadership is fragmented where one has no real knowledge of who their counterparts are. C’mon
so you’re saying that the California and Portland cells don’t know who they are training? or how they were contacted? C’mon.
Professor Turley, I believe that you miss the crux of the matter. The Democrats are denying the existence of ANTIFA because they know that the funding of ANTIFA by the Democratic Party and large money donors to the party are soon to be revealed by the FBI. It’s simply a preemptive move with a cover your ass goal in mind. How can an organization that receives all that left wing money receive such funding if said organization does not exist? They see that the proverbial cat will soon be escaping from the bag so they must tell us that neither the cat nor the bag exists. This tactic is extensively covered in Antifa the Handbook for Radicals. It’s all a part of instructions from the ANTIFA bible and they are carrying out the instructions to the letter.
In the DEDICATION of his book, Alinsky wrote, “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.”
Believe them when they tell you who they are.
Simple. Antifa is a philosophy, not a cohesive organization with an organization chart. There may be local groups that share the philosophy, but there isn’t a single source of control. There is no Antifa organizational chart with a national leader. There may be hundreds of separate and independent Antifa organizations and thousands of members.
Saying “Antifa” is like saying “Patriot.” There’s no single “Patriot” organization. Proud Boys would claim to be patriots, as do members of the KKK, as do Police unions. Similar goals as far as I can tell, but separate groups.
The Trump administration is heading to use “Antifa” as a vague label against anyone who is protesting his policies. Since it is a philosophy this will be as well controlled as the Salem witch trials where political enemies are called “Antifa” and, there being no organization which they can demonstrate they are not a member of, they cannot show they aren’t on the non-existent mailing list and have not attended any of the non-existent meetings.
Where is an org chart? Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, both backed by known billionaires for the purpose of taking control of the Federal Judiciary and the Federal Legislature and Federal Executive branches. The recent destabilizing of the CDC – now you’re fired, now you’re not – is not an error. It is economic terrorism that the Heritage Foundation requires to meet the goal of eliminating all functions of government except a military that is accustomed to taking up weapons against US citizens.
The article’s argument is not worthy of a first year student, but I bet it gets a paycheck.
Speaking of billionaires and shadow funding, Charlie Kirk is reported to have an estate of nearly $100M from just 10 years of work; that’s over $10M per year for a guy who has no visible means of support.
Anonymous once again makes an accusation but provides no source to support her claims.
It’s becoming more and more apparent that she is just mouthing ANTIFA propaganda. She gets her instructions from The Rules for Radicals and she is dedicated to carrying out the books command. I have asked her many times in vain to provide source material but it never happens. When someone is so entrenched in a belief that has nothing to do with reality the physiological explanation is insanity.
In the movie A Beautiful Mind the main character came to recognize that people who were telling him what to do were not real people. It did not mean that they would disappear from his mind but he learned to recognize that they were not real people and to ignore their commands.
Sadly Anonymous may never come to such an awakening. The only explanation for her continuing
exclamation is that they are caused by the sound of her own wheels. It has been said that when traveling from the east to the west by covered wagon the sound of the wagon wheels grinding on the sod day after day would make some of the women crazy. Here we have it.
Thinkitthrough is clearly doing the opposite.
“Simple. Antifa is a philosophy, not a cohesive organization with an organization chart. ”
Simple BullSchiff… Democrat Representative Goldman: why don’t you post your lies using your own name?
And you think continuing to attempt to villify Charlie Kirk is going to help you win the next election? Good luck with that – and please don’t change a single thing in your current strategy as you send apparatchiks out from the Democrat Borg to sell your messaging to normal Americans.
Post the Antifa org chart then.
Charlie Kirk vilified Charlie Kirk. He came to college campuses to tell them education was a scam, but failed to lead with the millions he was being paid by millionaires and billionaires to destabilize America.
Post the mafia chart…
Of course there is no antifa org chart to be had. They are a domestic terrorist group. They operate like a terrorist group: Small, independent cells so if one is compromised the others will not be. But as a group, they all have the same goals. We have seen it by their own words and actions.
Hey, antifa-Anon, why so much vague-splaining? Seems like you’re really saying, the non-existent, exists, by defining its “members” and veiled tactics.
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” George Carlin
Musing over my morning coffee as I get the dogs loaded up to go pheasant hunting, how GeorgeX is going to figure out how to spin this opinion piece to criticize Professor Turley’s column. Oh…. and the Trump administration of course.
The left has to deny the existence of Antifa or else the big lie of the dominance of “far right wing extremist violence” gets exposed. In their minds, if antifa does not exist, their violence is also a figment of the imagination.
Any organization that survived the most repressive regimes in human history is going to be very hard to kill. Darwinian Selection applies to organizations too. It is decentralized by design so that it can’t be rolled up. The foot soldiers are mostly bums and students who know nothing about their commanders. The are completely expendable. Rolling them up requires investigating the people at the top. Catch them orchestrating a conspiracy through their numerous layers of cutouts and NGOs, and this requires extensive and very intrusive electronic surveillance.
Antifa is nothing more than a bunch of lost soy boys looking for a fight that does not exist.
OMFK
Perhaps some of their lower level minions but do not underestimate their tier one group of leaders of hardcore Communists. They are real, they are dedicated to their cause and they are willing to kill and sow seeds of violence to push their agenda.
Mornin,’ Upstate. You reminded me, my dad used to have his names for the trigger-happy guys you refer to. His favorite was “dime store cowboys” or he’d shake his head and say, “all dressed up and no where to go.” (of course we never understood him until we got older.) (Hope you’re not wallowing around in a lot of mud today!)
Lin,
You dad sounds like a smart and good man. Spot on with the “all dressed up and no where to go,” reference.
We only got a little rain today. Passed to the east of us. Had a very nice weekend. Thank you for thinking of me!
Upstate-
“Antifa is nothing more than a bunch of lost soy boys…”
Maybe. I think more than that at some level.
It is worth remembering that the SA, the original Brownshirts, were lowlifes. That didn’t keep them from being cruel and destructive bullies.
More importantly, that didn’t keep them from being street fighters and cannon fodder for those using them and giving them political and legal cover.
It is important to find and curtail the streams of money and of power that sustain the evil “soy boy” Antifa.
I think it is a mistake to underestimate the dangers they pose.
You might not want war, but war wants you.
I spent a year in a war zone in Afghanistan. I know what that looks and sounds like. No. No, rational, sane or normal person should ever want that. Yet, it is our leftist friends, who support antifa, seem to want exactly that. Okay. As much as I would lament it, I would break out my bag-O-tricks I learned in Afghanistan, and apply it to them. It would not be nice or pretty.
Antifa – It has always been there, just under different branding:
The Under Ground, The Resistance, The Undesirables (to quote HRC).
It is a Branding of the People that are opposed to some aspects of the majority of widespread beliefs.
There will always be an element of “How you see it, isn’t ‘the way’ it is” because none of Us are the exact same.
It is: ‘the natural dispersion of perspective’ thus making our sight individualized, Everyone is Unique.
The fact that ‘Everyone is Unique” is what should unite Us not divide Us. However because there are powers that seek to divide Us into categorized groups, we have the propagation of designated Branded sectors of Society (Social Groups).
[i.e.: “Groups”: Antifa, Republicans, Californians, Communist, Patriots, … a never ending list]
Madison sought to unify the ‘Factions’ as best as possible, but the Natural Laws make that an impossibility. You just can’t ‘physically’ do it. I am different than you, You are different than me, thus the separation of perspectives, whereupon We can either agreed to unify our disassociate our socio-relationships.
… Anyway I haven’t had my morning coffee yet, so I’m gonna go put a pot, slip on my Sketchers, grab the Dog and go out on a imaginary walk along with Martha Stewart and enjoy the day. …
You do what you do, I’ll do what I do. (and That’s the moral of the story)
“Antifa – It has always been there, just under different branding… You do what you do, I’ll do what I do. (and That’s the moral of the story)”
WTF???? Never before has there been such an inarticulate non sequitur.
It’s far too early in the day to begin day drinking, followed by claiming that the criminal Antifa terrorists are willing to allow you to do what you want and to say what you want to.
^^^ Anonymous: @ October 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM ^^^
See – You see it different than I do.
Proof of my point.
“See – You see it different than I do. Proof of my point.”
See, there you go again: cosplaying as Monty Python’s Black Knight, proclaiming victory after having everything but your head lopped off.
Proclaiming victory is going to be as persuasive as Jimmy Kimmel trying the exact same sophomoric tactic.
Don’t change a thing in your tactics!
As this discussion continues, I begin the ponder if the Antifa should be rebranded as the Anti-Madisonian (Anti-Mad).
Unity does not appear to be on their agenda. In fact it appears to be just another Group seeking ‘Privileges’ by way of disruptive advocacy.
Hence they are not seeking ‘Equality’, but are in a conquest for ‘distinct-privilege’ as a Group, for if there were truly Equality, there would be no need for ‘distinction’. We would all be Unified as One.
That ‘equality’ will never happen, as the Laws of Nature, The Powers, The Invisible Fist, needs Inequity in order to have flow (you need Top to be different from Bottom in order for the flow to move). “Equality” is one of the mythic ‘Windmills of Don Quijote”s conquest.
I’ll rephrase: Inequity is an necessary evil. without it nothing will flow. (Sorry Kids, that’s life in the Jungle)
Ray Dalio spoke briefly on this point in his recent interview with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua.
He touched on the subject of ‘Managing’ People, wherein his perspective there are Autocratic needs and Democratic needs that must strike a balance in order for a Business to be successful. To extrapolate that, You need to balance the Top (Autocratic Mean) with the Bottom (Democratic Mean) so that Business (Flows) will be productive.
Ray Dalio on Life, Debt & Global Crisis
Francine Lacqua meets Ray Dalio on OceanX in the port of Nice for the UN Ocean Conference. They speak about radical transparency, building and leaving one of the largest hedge funds and what’s next. (Source: Bloomberg)
By: Francine Lacqua – Bloomberg Originals: Leaders with Lacqua ~ October 9th, 2025
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-10-10/ray-dalio-on-markets-debt-and-the-next-global-crisis-video
ANTIFA is VERY real indeed. I have been face-to-face with them at an event in Denver a few years ago. They are a group of domestic terrorists, supported and funded by someone with very deep pockets (Soros?)
A discussion about ANTIFA goes hand in hand with the grifter and con artist, Barack Obama.
It appears hell has frozen over and pigs are flying.
CNN is slamming Barack Obama for not giving credit to Donald Trump for brokering the Gaza peace deal.
Will we see Democrats across the land commit harakiri? Nah, that would require their having principles
I predict there will be no end to comments here attesting the non-existence of the fictional Antifa.
Tell that to the poor folks in Portland. Or say Germany.
DustOff,
Check this one out, Safe Oakland: Black families rally to support police while ‘mostly White’ protesters heckle cops
“Several people went on to the streets to support police and in what a journalist called a ‘surreal’ moment, Black families rallied to support the department while ‘mostly white Antifa’ protested against it”
https://meaww.com/black-families-rally-to-support-oakland-police-mostly-white-antifa-protest-cops-california-reactions
Yep no Antifa, till you watch all them videos from Portland. Most of all at night
Antifa is an organized group of individuals that indoctrinate the youth with their ideology of tyranny. They are funded by the same open border, Klaus Schwab minded idiots that hate everything about America. Finally, President Trump designated them for what they are, domestic terrorists. Give them a full dose of what they came for, crush them.
Tyranny requires a tyrant. Antifa is in opposition to tyrants.
It’s clear that Trump supports domestic terrorists – he pardoned all of them for their Jan 6th attack on Congress., except the one that declined to accept the pardon.
Nothing says “we oppose tyrants” more than showing up dressed all in black and masked exactly like Hajji terrorists you emulate, to use intimidation and violence to prevent normal Americans attempting to engage in First Amendment free speech. If you aren’t chanting the Democrats’commie theology – by Democrat/Antifa definition, that makes you a tyrant!
It’s obvious to all that the Democrats’ Antifa fellow fascists posting here claim that American domestic terrorism as they define it only began on January 6th. Certainly not on their weeks earlier two day long assault on the White House by their Antifa/Black Liars & Marxists storm trooper terrorists. THAT wasn’t domestic terrorism according to the Democrats’ Antifa members and insurrection veterans!
After that two day assault and their attempts to breach the Secret Service/Capitol Police lines to get in to murder Trump and his family, their excuse was “Trump forced us to engage in domestic terrorism because he’s a tyrant who might get reelected by American voters”.
Don’t change a single thing in your campaign of Democrat lies to win the upcoming elections. It’s a masterful strategy you’re engaged in – how could it possibly go wrong!
One to thing to consider about Antifa and it’s non existence. If members of Antifa start to disappear permanently then where is there any crime since they did not exist in the first place. By denying their existence the supporting democrats putting a huge target on Antifa’s chest and when it suddenly disappears, as this could happen, then what will the democrats do because it never existed in the first place. They should be careful because there are probably some opponents out there who might think the same way and seek to possibly remove something that was never there. I don’t doubt there are probably other groups of people who have reached similar conclusions. The question will be whether they take action or not.
It they did take action, how would we ever know?
Great idea. I say, go for it. If they don’t exist, nothing will be lost, or deemed “missing”.
Lots of them disappear all the time. Street level activists get arrested and go to jail. But nobody cares. The bums in the street are either radicalized students or homeless who are given 100 bucks in cash to do something. Nobody will miss them, there are millions more to take their place, and they guy who passed out the Benjamins will never be found.
You don’t have to be all that old to remember when “street level activists” were simply called “rioters”.
Now many are straight out of the book “1984”, where the government agent tells Winston: “The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect”.
Are all dog owners part of a collective? If some demented Republican said that there was a pet owner’s group and pointed at someone walking a dog and claimed they were part of a non-existent overall pet owner’s group and then kidnapped them, it’s still kidnapping.
I don’t doubt how ignorant conservatives can be and what uninformed conclusions they can come to. One tried to kill people over a child sex ring rumored to be operating out of the basement of a business that literally had no basement and no child sex ring.
I suspect there is a strong link between a belief in conspiracies and a belief in conservatism.
The real advantage to making this claim is that a cop can put on a face covering and black clothing, get into a crowd, and throw a brick, giving the rest of the cops an excuse to assault the crowd. Boom – everyone in the crowd is Antifa.
“The real advantage to making this claim is that a cop can put on a face covering and black clothing, get into a crowd, and throw a brick, giving the rest of the cops an excuse to assault the crowd.”
Democrats have swiftly reverted from a few months of loving cops to hating cops – their natural state of existence. I suspect there’s a direct causal link between being a denizen of the Democrat Borg and lying, denying, and channeling ones own sins on those they hate as a form of self-confession to deal with guilt.
You’re referencing efforts like the FBI doing the same thing to create the Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot?
And what WERE those 247 FBI agents doing, dressed in plain clothes and with exactly zero tactical crowd control training, that were inserted into the January 6th event? And only after Pelosi and other Democrats had rejected Trump’s offer of thousands of National Guard troops to secure the Capitol that day?
We now have the FBI after action reports, where hundreds of FBI agents had the courage to openly complain to FBI Director Wray they were put in there for political purposes, not law enforcement.
Any ignorant Democrat apparatchiks explain how that was a legitimate law enforcement response following the discovery that a crime has been committed?
Got anything better, little Democrat Antifa fascist?