Barr: There Are Investigations of ‘Certain Individuals That Relate to Antifa’ – Extremists ‘on All Sides’ Exploiting Situation

During an interview aired on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Attorney General William Barr stated that there are “investigations underway and very focused investigations on certain individuals that relate to Antifa” and “there’s a witches brew of extremist groups that are trying to exploit this situation on all sides.”

Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant exchange begins around 10:30] “There’s a lot of people that have been charged with crimes related to the protests that devolved into riots and looting. To my knowledge, none of the criminal complaints have mentioned Antifa. Why is that?”

Barr responded, “We have some investigations underway and very focused investigations on certain individuals that relate to Antifa. But in the initial phase of identifying people and arresting them, they were arrested for crimes that don’t require us to identify a particular group or don’t necessitate that.”

Baier also asked, “Are there people funding this effort, an organized effort that it goes beyond state-specific that — funding the effort broadly, and are you going after those people?”

Barr answered, “There appear to be sources of funding and we are looking into the sources of funding. And there is clearly some — a high degree of organization involved at some of these events and coordinated tactics that we’re seeing, and we’re looking into that as well. And some of it relates to Antifa. Some of it relates to groups that act very much like Antifa. There — as I said, there’s a witches brew of extremist groups that are trying to exploit this situation on all sides.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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