Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were Bigger Threat Than Antifa At George Floyd Protests, Report Says

A Wednesday report from The Intercept revealed leaked documents that suggest law enforcement was aware that far-right extremists — not Antifa — were the most significant threat at the civil rights protests sparked from George Floyd’s death.

The materials allegedly consist of nearly 300 documents, referred to as “BlueLeaks,” and were reportedly hacked and posted online. The Intercept analyzed the information and claimed that law enforcement cast Antifa and left-wing protesters in “cartoonishly grim terms.” Conversely, the publication noted that its analysis found that this picture was contrasted with “substantive reports” of lethal violence from the right. Such violence was allegedly not the focus of Donald Trump’s administration, which was seen as devoting much of its time on the subject publicly warning of the destructive threat of Antifa.

In one instance, documents revealed that on May 29, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) analysts released an intelligence report on white supremacists who were purportedly pushing followers to capitalize on the civil unrest by attacking police officers with firearms and Molotov cocktails. Just two days later, the president called for Antifa to be labeled a terrorist organization.

Despite the Trump administration’s lack of public focus on far-right extremism, his DHS was allegedly acknowledging the presence of purported “media reports” suggesting that paramilitary far-right groups were promoting domestic terrorism amid the civil unrest of the Floyd protests.

“A series of Telegram accounts linked to a wider network of paramilitary far-right extremists have indicated that ongoing disturbances are spreading America’s police forces thin, making this the ideal time to strike with a strategic attack,” the DHS reported.

The report also highlighted an apparently fake Twitter Antifa account that was later removed and purportedly created by a “known white supremacist group” that was at the time making calls for violence.

While government intelligence pointed to the threat of far-right extremism, The Intercept reported that law enforcement continued to set its sights on Antifa.

“As law enforcement worked to find cases that would support the attorney general’s portrait of a looming Antifa menace, evidence mounted in late May and early June of right-wing extremists amassing weapons, plotting terror attacks, and killing law enforcement officials.”

According to The Intercept, the BlueLeaks documents suggest that some police officers had a “borderline obsession” with broadly painting left-wing pushback as a significant terrorist threat. In addition, law enforcement offices across the country supposedly continued to come across evidence that far-right extremists were plotting and encouraging violence against protestors and police.

Adam Leggat, a former British Army counter-terrorism officer, claimed in the early days of the Floyd protests that intelligence from his security consultant colleagues claimed that the most destructive protestors were far-left anarchists. However, he suggested that far-right actors could enter the picture at some point.

As The Inquisitr reported, Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed in 2019 that most domestic terrorism is caused by white supremacists.