The following article is an installment in our ongoing effort to encourage law enforcement to investigate and expose the organizational roots and funding underlying the deadly riots that swept across many U.S. cities after Black Lives Matter protests flared in 2020.
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations’ database shows that the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a nonprofit within Soros’ network, gave $3 million to the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability (The Hub) in 2020.
Dark Money. So-called Dark Money is one place to start looking for how Antifa is funded. Of course, there are many groups that foment violence under the smokescreen of Black Lives Matter protests. And none of the groups have been per se identified as Antifa because no such entity as Antifa exists. News outlets have studiously avoided references to Antifa because of the decentralized nature of the anti-Fascist riots.
But a recent criminal case filed by San Diego prosecutors resulting from investigations into Antifa violence across Southern California has now identified Antifa as a dangerous conspiracy. It is now time to ask whether The Hub financial resources, provided to help leftist activists in their efforts to create anarchy, undermine the criminal-justice system. The effort apparently includes abolishing and defunding the police.
In 2019, a Soros funded nonprofit (or nonprofits) gave $1.9 million, out of which $500,000 was spent on establishing The Hub. The information regarding these Soros funded financial dealings has been reported to be contained in Open Society Foundation’s tax forms. The Hub features contributions from radical socialist groups such as No Cop Academy, Cops Off Campus Coalition, and The Digital Abolitionist.
The Hub organization directly works on projects aimed at defunding police. For example, The Hub “houses and staffs” the website defundpolice.org in partnership with several national movement organizations.
The Hub is affiliated with the New Venture Fund which gives the groups it houses tax-exempt and legal status. Projects under this umbrella are not required to file IRS tax forms which divulge information such as board members and financials. According to Fox News, the New Venture Fund took in $965 million in anonymous donations in 2020. It is one of four funds Arabella Advisors manages, along with the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund. The Soros Open Society nonprofit tax forms allegedly show that the four funds in the dark money network received $1.6 billion in secret donations last year.
The fact that so much cash is going to the New Venture Fund to be passed off to the CRH Hub and the lack of accountability brings us to the issue of where all the money goes. That question in turn raises the issue of whether Antifa groups are operating with the same kind of deniability for which the Open Society Foundation is known in places like the Ukraine and Syria. These are places where paramilitary shock troops “protesting” in support of so-called Color Revolutions are financed with Dark Money funneled through tangled networks, including groups allegedly funded by Open Society Foundation.
Criminal Complaint Alleges Antifa Conspiracy. In 2021, the San Diego County District Attorney recently named Antifa in a criminal complaint charging 11 alleged Antifa members with felony conspiracy and felony assault charges. According to the Newsweek report, dated Dec. 9, 2021, so-called Anti-Fascist rioters (Antifa members) randomly beat bystanders and targeted supporters of former President Trump. Law Enforcement officers executing search and arrest warrants recovered three guns, ammunition, body armor and drugs.
The case significantly changes the legal atmosphere and puts news media folks on notice that Antifa is not an urban conspiracy theory invented by Rightwing Republican “Q” fans. Law enforcement knows that there are organized groups of well-funded, violent criminals who target police and anyone else perceived as opposing Antifa’s Anarchist-Communist agenda.
The problem is that law enforcement officers are constrained from engaging in political activity and many of the law enforcement officials managing police departments in places like Chicago, Portland and Seattle are beholden to political authorities sympathetic to Antifa objectives. The overlap between Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists and activists who identify with Antifa also creates a huge public relations problem for law enforcement officials inclined to expose the money trails, objectives and organizational structures that energize riots in big cities across the U.S. and Europe.
“The Defendants are alleged to be affiliated with ANTIFA and are organized into two groups, one originating from Los Angeles and the other from San Diego,” reads the charging document.
“ANTIFA is known to use force, fear, and violence to further their own interests and to suppress the interests of others. This tactic is referred to as ‘Direct Action’ and is known to mean acts of violence such as assault, battery, assault with deadly weapons, arson, and vandalism. The alleged object of this conspiracy was to incite and participate in a riot using direct action tactics.”
According to the Newsweek article, Antifa members chased people and pepper-sprayed them in the face. Leftwing Antifa-style Storm Troopers dressed in Black Bloc clothing punched and kicked Trump supporters and assaulted bystanders.
The rioters attacked police officers with rocks, bottles and pepper spray. Sixteen people were victimized in eight separate attacks at one of several riots referenced in the Complaint. These were orchestrated criminal conspiracies “with other unidentified persons” conspiring to riot and commit violent criminal acts. The San Diego District Attorney’s Office released a press statement saying that Antifa rioters assaulted minors and a journalist:
“The Antifa-affiliated group surrounded several minors who they believed to be attending the Patriot March, sprayed them with mace and chased them up the boardwalk, shoving one of the minors to the ground. The minor was surrounded and beaten resulting in the minor victim being taken to the hospital to be treated for a concussion.”
The criminal complaint alleges:
“Antifa supporters” had posted on social media calling for a counter direct action against the Trump rally days before. During the riots in 2020 and 2021 in West Coast cities like Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles, violent direct actions by antifa and leftist groups were announced and promoted on Twitter. The complaint alleges that nine out of the 10 suspects wore black clothing, with the 10th suspect wearing black and a red flannel jacket that had “pro Antifa patches.” Black clothing and black masks are part of a tactic known as black bloc and is used by antifa groups to evade identification by journalists and law enforcement.”
See Newsweek article.
Antifa’s well-documented tactics involve coordinated activity to blind victims with pepper-spray and liquids thrown at people in their path. The tactics include deadly weapons, punches, kicks and projectiles, such as bottle rockets launched at police in Portland, Oregon. The criminal complaint alleges that a San Diego resident pointed out victims for others to assault. In November 2020, one of the defendants allegedly set fire to a San Diego Police Department property using homemade firebombs.
The San Diego chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association, an organization that was linked to the leftist Dayton, Ohio mass shooter, stated that Defendant Jonah Bigel’s home was searched and that a judge authorized police to seize “any flags, decorations, or paraphernalia showing association to ‘Antifa.'”
Jeremy White, of North Hollywood, charged with felony conspiracy, assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of use of tear gas and felony animal cruelty, was previously arrested in Los Angeles at a Black Lives Matter protest meant to intimidate a former district attorney.
Joseph Austin Gaskins, charged with felony conspiracy and assault with a deadly weapon, had been arrested at a Black Lives Matter-antifa riot in August 2020 in which an officer suffered a concussion after Gaskins allegedly struck him on the head with a cane.
Antifa groups on Twitter have been fundraising “emergency bail” using various CashApp and Venmo accounts. The fact that large amounts of bail money have been raised so quickly raises the issue of how Antifa is funded:
Eight of the nine suspects were arraigned with bail between $200,000–$250,000. They were each bonded out within a day.
Rittenhouse Trial Exposes Orchestrated Antifa Tactics. We expect to follow up with an analysis of lessons to be learned from the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. It is significant that so many Americans watched that trial. Many people have now seen videos and heard testimony regarding how violent the “mostly peaceful” protests actually became. The news media suppressed reports of violent beatings, assaults with deadly weapons and widespread arson destroying neighborhoods and business establishments. National news journalists have largely dismissed Antifa as an urban legend despite the fact that armed thugs have attacked and killed police officers and citizens alike. Everything became apparent in the videos seen by the viewing audience during the televised Rittenhouse trial.
We will discuss why armed citizens openly carrying weapons will cause “protesters’ to swarm honest citizens with numbers of experienced Antifa-style activists using well-orchestrated tactics designed to make police and armed citizens look like the aggressors in the eyes of national news media audiences. Journalists and their corporate media publishers have a systemic interest in reporting the protests as opposing groups made up of Rightwing domestic terrorists with guns against mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters opposing Rightwing, racist counter-protesters.
Don’t Dress Like Militia. The second point is like the first. Don’t call attention to yourself by looking like a militia member. Stay together and avoid areas where BLM and Antifa people are demonstrating. Stay concealed and don’t do anything that can be construed as brandishing a weapon or perceived as intimidating other people. Unless there is an imminent threat of deadly force or grave bodily harm, you are safer with your weapon concealed. Regardless of how welcome your assistance might be to police officers being overwhelmed by attacks on themselves and their communities, you will risk being prosecuted when the media optics put you in a negative light.
Armed citizens have a positive role in helping to provide limited support to law enforcement. Our most important objective, at this point in time, should be to expose how anarchy is fomented and financed in high places. Law enforcement has the tools to investigate. If cops can’t expose this conspiracy they should reach out off the record via email or encrypted messaging apps.
We all should be doing our part to change the atmosphere. Praying for LEOs and law enforcement officials should be a first priority for all of us.
“The Watchman watches in vain unless God stands guard over the City!”
See Book of Proverbs.
The Law Office of Mark Knapp PLLC 