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antifa
Broadening Assault on the Left, Trump Designates EU Anti-Fascist Groups as ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’
Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein warns that the designation opens up US citizens to government surveillance, asset seizure, and material support charges.
Nov 14, 2025
President Donald Trump's State Department on Thursday broadened his efforts to use "terrorism" to crush his enemies on the left, designating four European groups as "foreign terrorist organizations" based on their alleged connections to the vaguely defined network of leftist agitators known as "antifa," short for "anti-fascist."
Following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September, Trump turned his attention toward waging a war on left-wing protest groups and liberal nonprofits, describing them as part of a vast, interconnected web that was fomenting "terrorism," primarily through First Amendment-protected speech.
As part of that effort, Trump formally designated "antifa" as a "domestic terrorist organization," even though it is not a formal group with any structure, but rather, a loose confederation of individuals all expressing an amorphous political belief. Civil rights advocates warned that the vague nature of the designation could be extended to bring terrorism charges against anyone who describes the Trump administration's actions as fascist or authoritarian.
Shortly after, Trump also signed a little-reported national security order, known as National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which mandated a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Some of the indicators of potential violence, the memo said, were “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity," "extremism on migration, race, and gender," and "hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.“
Referencing NSPM-7 explicitly, the State Department on Thursday spread that crusade against the left overseas, slapping four German, Greek, and Italian anarchist groups with the label of "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO). The same designation has been given to groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Shabaab.
The groups targeted were Antifa Ost in Germany; the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI) in Italy; Armed Proletarian Justice in Greece; and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense, also in Greece.
The State Department said:
The designation of Antifa Ost and other violent Antifa groups supports President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, an initiative to disrupt self-described ‘anti-fascism’ networks, entities, and organizations that use political violence and terroristic acts to undermine democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental liberties.
Groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, ‘anti-capitalism,’ and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas.
Each of the accused groups has had members charged with or convicted of violence, often against Neo-Nazis or adjacent far-right causes. But while they are more organized than America's anti-fascist movement, they are still broad-based and diffuse.
Mirroring what studies have shown in the US, the far-right is responsible for the overwhelming bulk of political violence in the European Union. A 2024 study by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) found that across Europe, the far-right was responsible for 85% of the violent targeted incidents they tracked.
Though Greece was one exception, where far-left violence was more prevalent than far-right violence, Mary Bossis, an emeritus professor of international security at Piraeus University in Athens, told The Guardian that Greece's anti-fascist movement has little to do with it.
"It is highly exaggerated to say that the antifa movement in Greece employs terror tactics," she said. "They even run in elections and have never shown any sign of violence.”
While most social movements have some violent adherents, Bossis said, "that does not mean, as in the case of antifa, that the whole movement is either violent or supportive of terrorism. In fact, it is very much not the case… Standing against fascism does not make someone a terrorist.”
As Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor who teaches a course on the history of antifascism, pointed out in The Guardian, Antifa Ost is the only one of the four groups designated by Trump that self-identifies as anti-fascist.
“The others are revolutionary groups,” he said. “This shows how the Trump administration is trying to lump all revolutionary and radical groups together under the label ‘antifa’. By establishing the (alleged) existence of foreign antifa groups, the Trump administration seems to be setting the stage for declaring American antifa groups (and all that they deem to be ‘antifa’) to be affiliated with these supposed foreign terrorist groups.”
Ken Klippenstein, an independent investigative journalist who has warned about NSPM-7 since its release, noted that this marks the first time that an entity in any of these three European countries has ever been slapped with the label of an FTO.
"The move seems an attempt to make people accustomed to white Westerners being treated as terrorists," he wrote Thursday. "That, after all, is the goal of Trump’s national security directive NSPM-7."
While there is no law on the books to back Trump's designation of antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, there is such a designation for foreign terrorist groups.
Being designated as a member of a foreign terrorist organization can subject one to significant sanctions, including having assets in American banks frozen, being unable to enter the country, or being prosecuted for "material support."
The government has used accusations of terrorism to go much farther, including carrying out extrajudicial assassinations of targets. Over the past two months, the Trump administration has bombed over a dozen boats in the Caribbean using the unsubstantiated justification that their passengers are "narco-terrorists" shipping drugs for cartels, which the administration has also designated as FTOs. The attacks have killed at least 76 people.
Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested last month that the Trump administration planned to use the "same approach" to antifa as it has with cartels, leading many to fear that might include assassinations.
Mehdi Hasan, the founder of the media outlet Zeteo, said the designation of these groups as terrorist organizations was "super bad for US citizens, especially on the left of the spectrum," because it "gives this authoritarian administration potentially the power to surveil and go after US citizens on spurious 'funding of FTO' grounds."
The State Department noted in a fact sheet on the designations that it is also seeking to target those in the US accused of supporting these groups.
"US persons are generally prohibited from conducting business with sanctioned persons. It is also a crime to knowingly provide material support or resources to those designated, or to attempt or conspire to do so," the memo said. "Persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with those designated today may expose themselves to sanctions risk. Notably, engaging in certain transactions with them entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to counterterrorism authorities."
Klippenstein said that while Trump's "domestic terrorist" designation was limited, "with an FTO designation, the gloves come off," opening Americans up to "FISA surveillance, seizure of financial assets, [and] material support charges."
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Niemöller Was Wrong: When They Came for the Communists, People Didn’t Just Stay Silent
Not just silence, but liberal “appeasement” of the right has brought us here.
Oct 25, 2025
It’s one of the most rousing calls to conscience to come out of the 20th century. I’m thinking of Martin Niemöller’s “First they came for the communists.”
You know how it goes. It begins, “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.” And it ends, “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
It’s a powerful statement, and you’ll see it on T-shirts and posters and placards at demonstrations. But when you actually look at our history, it’s not just that good people didn’t speak out. It’s that many Americans threw other Americans under the bus.
The story of the Danish king who wore a yellow star in solidarity with Jewish Danes during World War II is apocryphal. It never happened. So too, while our cultural memory about the McCarthy era romances the refuseniks, hundreds of Americans did comply with the Red Scare, identifying colleagues or associates as communists to protect themselves or preserve their careers. The Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy reports that of the more than 500 people who were called to testify in front of Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, only about 100 invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions on self-incrimination grounds. The rest went along.
When someone comes for the anti-fascists, the odds are that some will say, “Antifa is us.” But how many?
This phenomenon was even more pronounced before HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), which paralleled McCarthy’s Senate investigations. The “Hollywood 10” refused to testify, but Elia Kazan wasn’t alone in supplying the committee with lists of colleagues who had supposedly suspect ties. Their cooperation frequently allowed them to continue working in the film industry, while those who refused were blacklisted for years.
So too, in our time, when the press and the pundits, and the politicians, and the courts have come for the abortion providers, the anti-Zionists, the teachers of critical race theory, and the nonconforming queers, many didn’t just stay silent. They actively participated in creating suspicion around those people and their principles.
Citing electoral calculus and political pragmatism, liberal “compromises” on abortion law, dating back to Roe v. Wade, contributed to the erosion of reproductive autonomy well before the 2022 Dobbs decision. After 2021, laws restricting “race-conscious instruction” spread to 45 states meeting minimal resistance.
LGBTQ rights have always been dispensable—depending on the political climate. Today, trans Americans, even kids, are isolated, afraid, and at the nation’s highest risk for suicide.
Not just silence, but liberal “appeasement” of the right has brought us here.
Now President Donald Trump and his mob are trying to vilify “Antifa,” an entity that he thinks exists but really doesn’t. Are we going to allow “anti-fascist” to be made suspect?
Innumerable signs held by countless Americans at No Kings protests suggest it won’t be easy. From the older women carrying versions of “Auntie Fa’s cookies don’t crumble for kings” to the green-clad members of Amphifa (Amphibians Against Fascism), to the 76-year-old who walked in Washington, DC with a straightforward “I am Antifa” sign. When someone comes for the anti-fascists, the odds are that some will say, “Antifa is us.” But how many? Others will always seek refuge in cowardice and caving. Our history is brimming with both.
I had a chance to talk with longtime organizer Dolores Huerta, and theater artist Ellen Gavin about their new short video “The People United” recently on my TV and radio program, Laura Flanders & Friends. Find out more at lauraflanders.org.
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National Lawyers Guild Vows to Fight GOP Criminalization of 'Left-Leaning Organizations'
"The NLG will continue to speak out in support of activists and movements most targeted by state repression."
Oct 24, 2025
The National Lawyers Guild expressed pride in its long history of "defending those who challenge fascism" on Thursday as it responded to a demand by a Republican congressman who called on US Department of Justice to investigate the nearly 90-year-old legal advocacy group's alleged ties to "antifa"—which the federal government has acknowledged is not an organization—and accused it of "perpetrating violence."
The NLG said that Rep. Lance Gooden's (R-Texas) letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi was a "clear act of 'jawboning,'" in which "a member of Congress uses their position to chill the First Amendment rights of others and has no legitimate legislative purpose."
Gooden wrote to Bondi, copying FBI Director Kash Patel and Internal Revenue Service CEO Frank Bisignano, last week, saying the NLG and its network of nonprofit social welfare groups "maintain close ties with left-wing extremists and domestic terrorist organizations like Antifa."
The congressman suggested that the group's original goal of "fighting fascist oppression" when it was founded in 1937 was a worthy one—yet took issue with the NLG for "openly aligning itself" with antifa, which former FBI Director Christopher Wray said during the first Trump administration is an "ideology" rather than a "group or an organization."
"Antifa" is a portmanteau of "anti-fascist," and has no organizational structure or leaders. Anti-fascist ideologies are embraced by autonomous groups and individuals, including many who have protested against President Donald Trump's anti-immigration, anti-First Amendment agenda.
"Anti-fascists are those that refuse to stay silent as [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents disappear people off the streets," said the NLG in a recent post on Bluesky. "Anti-fascists are the Stop Cop City protesters, defending their communities from the expansion of police training grounds."
"We all know that this is not the first time the NLG has faced political attacks from the US government."
Gooden noted that Trump recently signed an executive order designating antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization"—a legal designation that doesn't exist in the US—and called on the DOJ to take "stringent action in accordance with President Trump’s terrorist designation," including potential "disbarment of the NLG’s member attorneys, revocation of 501 status and benefits, and bringing criminal charges as the administration deems necessary and appropriate."
The NLG pointed out that it is not the first progressive rights organization to be targeted by the Republican Party.
"Over the past couple of years, several left-leaning organizations have been targeted in similar letters, particularly groups that have been standing up against the genocide in Palestine. Essentially, a member of the US Congress or Senate will issue an incendiary letter against an organization and call for specific government agencies to investigate and, in some cases, issue criminal charges," said the group. "The NLG is taking this development seriously."
The threat against NLG comes as the Trump administration has levied multiple threats against left-wing organizers—both with his executive order and National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a government strategy "to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
The guild's local chapters in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and Washington, DC have supported local movements as legal advocates since Trump began attempting to deploy federal immigration agents and the National Guard to the cities with the aim of carrying out his deportation campaign and stopping protests against his anti-immigration agenda.
Last week, the group expressed solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants, who held a noise demonstration outside Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas. The Trump administration has indicted the protesters, marking the first use of the president's terrorist designation of "antifa" to bring criminal charges against a group.
"We all know that this is not the first time the NLG has faced political attacks from the US government. Since our founding in 1937, NLG members have been at the frontlines of defending those who challenge fascism and have been the target of state repression. This is a history we are proud of," said the group.
The group's statement came new polling from Reuters/Ipsos showed that 55% of US adults believe the president is wrongly using federal law enforcement to "go after his enemies," including officials like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey as well as groups he disagrees with.
It also comes amid reporting that the FBI has begun questioning individual protesters about their involvement in anti-ICE demonstrations, according to journalist Ken Klippenstein.
"Under the domestic counterterrorism cases of the Trump administration, no crime needs to be actually committed for authorities to open an investigation," wrote Klippenstein. "In fact, NSPM-7 explicitly calls for a preemptive approach where law enforcement intervene in things 'before they result in violent political acts.' Attorney General Pam Bondi cited NSPM-7 in her own directive, ordering the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on anti-ICE 'terrorism,' citing protests in front of ICE facilities specifically."
The NLG has provided legal advocacy at protests at ICE facilities in Chicago and Portland, documenting the actions of police and federal agents.
"The NLG will continue to speak out," said the group, "in support of activists and movements most targeted by state repression."
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