By Janice Hisle
Federal authorities are investigating events surrounding a violent Antifa protest at a conservative gathering in California, a top Justice Department official announced Nov. 11.
That action comes in the wake of a Nov. 10 Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event at the University of California, Berkeley, where “violent thugs” attacked attendees, said Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
In a social media post, Dhillon described “issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security and Antifa’s ability to operate with impunity” in the Golden State.
TPUSA is a conservative organization whose cofounder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated while speaking on a Utah college campus Sept. 10—a killing allegedly tied to Antifa-related ideology because of anti-fascist markings found on both spent and unspent bullets that were seized from the crime scene as evidence in the case.
Dhillon, in her post on X, shared a video that TPUSA shot, showing explosions, fire, and smoke, as protesters waved signs and chanted against “fascists.” The post included a comment from Nick Sortor, who describes himself as an independent journalist.
“Antifa has turned Turning Point’s event at UC Berkeley in California into an absolute WARZONE,” Sortor wrote. “Munitions are being lit on fire by Antifa while attendees are rushed into the venue.”
Dhillon also posted that her agency would be contacting UC Berkeley and the city of Berkeley.
“In America, we do not allow citizens to be attacked by violent thugs and shrug and turn our backs. Been there, done that, not on our watch.”
She also said her concerns were similar to those she experienced in 2017 as a private attorney. She was then representing conservatives who sued UC Berkeley over its alleged discrimination against speakers espousing politically conservative viewpoints. The university settled the lawsuit in 2018, pledging to change its procedures for handling “major events.”
At the time, Dhillon stated that the settlement benefited all students, not just conservative students.
University, Others React
In response to The Epoch Times’s request for comment about the latest incident, Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor at the university, said, “UC Berkeley has not been notified of any federal investigation.”Via email on Nov. 11, Mogulof said that more than 900 people attended the TPUSA gathering, adding, “The event was successfully held and proceeded without disruption.”
City police officers arrested two people prior to the event “for fighting outside campus,” he wrote, while campus police arrested two others for “failing to comply with directions.”
UC Berkeley originated the “free speech movement” in 1964, at a time when California college campuses prohibited free speech about non-campus-related causes.
The Epoch Times sent a message asking City Attorney Farimah Brown to respond to Dhillon’s promise to take action against the city. However, city offices were closed in observance of the Veterans Day national holiday; no response from Brown arrived prior to publication time.
TPUSA, in a social media post before the violence erupted that night, said that protesters were “chanting that they are ‘ANTIFA,’” and that their purpose was to “stop fascism,” while shutting down TPUSA and labeling all attendees as “fascists.”Attendees such as Savanah Hernandez, an independent journalist who contributes content to TPUSA, said the incident was frightening.
In a social media post, Hernandez alleged that the protesters “were allowed to terrorize innocent Americans for hours while openly calling for everyone in attendance to be killed, by labeling them all ‘fascists’ while then proceeding to chant ‘death to fascists.’”
“They also made a point to continue to celebrate and normalize the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Hernandez said.
Kirk had been scheduled to speak at the Nov. 10 UC Berkeley event. Instead, the program featured comedian Rob Schneider and Christian media personality Frank Turek.
Kirk had on many occasions pushed back against the leftist classification of his views as “fascist.”
“I don’t care being lied about,” he once told a young man who engaged him at one of his open tents on his “American Comeback Tour” on college campuses. “I’m not a fascist, I believe in a free society.”
Hernandez, in her Nov. 11 post, said that, based on her observations at UC Berkeley, the Trump administration “is not taking ANTIFA seriously and the labeling of ANTIFA as a domestic terrorist organization has had ZERO effect.”
“If anything, it’s emboldened these violent anarchists,” she wrote on X.
The Epoch Times sent a message to the FBI seeking a response to criticisms such as Hernandez’s. An automatic reply stated that FBI responses were limited because of reduced staffing during the government shutdown, which has persisted since Oct. 1.
Attorney General Pam Bondi recognized the civil unrest on Tuesday afternoon in a post on X, saying, “Antifa is an existential threat to our nation.”
“The violent riots at UC Berkeley last night are under full investigation by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence,” she said, noting the executive order designating Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump issued the order 12 days after Kirk’s assassination, and later issued a memo that outlined additional directives to the FBI and numerous other federal agencies involved with the Antifa probe.
“The Department of Justice and our law-enforcement partners are dismantling violent networks that seek to intimidate Americans and suppress their free expression and First Amendment rights,” Bondi said.
The FBI stated it is following Trump’s directive to investigate Antifa.
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