Contradicting President Trump, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee Thursday that antifa is an ideology, but it is not a group or organization, the Associated Press reports.
Wray noted that the Bureau has opened “any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent extremism, including into individuals who identify with antifa.”
Unlike Trump, who has characterized antifa as an organized group that coordinates its activities, Wray said, “It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology.”
Trump tweeted in May that he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization, but such a designation is impossible for a movement. It would be the equivalent of naming “civil rights” as a terrorist group.
Wray noted that in recent years, the deadliest attacks have come from far-right and white nationalists groups, although this year, attacks from anti-government groups have been the most lethal. Wray refrained from describing those groups as left- or right-leaning, saying, “We don’t we don’t really think of threats in terms of left, right, at the FBI. We’re focused on the violence, not the ideology.”