Patel says FBI found more weaponization crimes, close to solving command and funding for Antifa

FBI Director Kash Patel tells Just the News that the bureau is "on the verge" of unmasking the command structure and financing for anarchist groups like Antifa that have unleashed unrest around America and has also identified potential new criminal activity related to the abuse of federal law enforcement and intelligence.

"We are looking at so many different leads on criminal activity by those who are in positions of power, and we're not going to stop until every single one of those is fully exposed," Patel said during a wide-ranging interview this week on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. 

When asked whether more indictments against those accused of weaponizing government may be ahead, he said: "the documents are provided either to Congress or the courts of law and we make every referral we can under the Department of Justice.

"These indictments that you've seen, and the ones that you're going to see coming up here in this near future, are just the beginning," he added.

Weaponization: Two related indictments already

The director, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has pressed his team to uncover tens of thousands of pages of documents long withheld from Congress that chronicle abuses by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in scandals spanning from Russiagate and Ukraine impeachment to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

Those documents have already led to the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly making false statements to thwart Congress during an investigation of news leaks and the indictment Thursday of former National Security Advisor John Bolton for the mishandling of classified information.

Patel asked Americans to be patient, saying some of the abuses of a weaponized government were systematically built over many years and are complex to unravel.

"I have to remind the audience of one thing. Everybody's like, it's seven months. What have you guys been doing? Well, they spent 20 years building this diseased temple of corruption," he said. "It takes a little bit of time to defeat it and beat it down. I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to look at the work the men and women of the FBI have done so far in these seven, eight months, and just imagine what we're going to do come the year's end."

Unraveling the mysteries of Antifa

Patel said one area where the FBI has made rapid progress is the tracking of financing and command structures of anarchist groups like Antifa that have fomented unrest in American cities, attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounding up illegal immigrants and antisemitic movements on college campuses.

He said there are indications that some support may come from overseas enemies and U.S. nonprofit groups that have tax exemptions from the IRS.

"Look, the thing I can tell you is that money doesn't lie, and the thing we're doing at the FBI is following the money," Patel explained. "And thanks to President Trump, we now have Antifa designated, rightfully so, as a domestic terror organization. And we have had multiple investigations going on."

Patel said those probes are "mapping out the money, and we are using social media and the influencers that the President had here just this last week, because they're the ones on the ground, getting us ground level intelligence, because law enforcement isn't able to enter these spaces, and these people are brave enough to do it."

Patel's comments came as a federal grand jury on Wednesday night indicted two people allegedly tied to Antifa on terrorism charges for an attack in July on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Texas.

The two individuals, identified as Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts, were charged with providing material support for terrorism, attempting to murder federal and assisting officers and discharging firearms during attempted murders.

You can read that indictment here:

Antifa indictment

Entirely new program and division planned

That indictment undercut the argument made by many Democrats and even some journalists who have argued that Antifa is not a group, but rather just a mere ideology. Most notably, Keith Ellison, attorney general of Minnesota, recently said that "nobody even knows what it is," but conservative pundits were quick to point to receipts, such as Powerlineblog.com, which published a photo of Ellison proudly holding a book in 2018 titled, "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook."

Patel told Just the News that the effort tracking Antifa funding has become so important that "we've created an entire new program and division dedicated to rooting out the money that is funding these operations, whether it's U.S. based or internationally."

"Someone is paying for this. These are organized acts of violence, fully funded by people who don't even live necessarily in these communities, showing up in the dozens with the same placards, the same helmets, the same riot gear. Someone's paying for it, and we're on the verge of finding that out next to these new authorities," he added.

The FBI's top boss detailed that these probes have found fascinating connections, including between traditional anarchist groups like Antifa and transgender activist groups that are incubating in places like social media platforms favored by gamers.

Patel: "Social media is wildly out of control"

"I think there's going to be some crossover, for sure," he said. "But what that raises in my mind is a problem that I've been trying to tackle for a long time: social media is wildly out of control. I mean our kids are allowed to go on these gaming platforms for fair purposes, gaming."

"But then, unfortunately, you have the child predators that go on these gaming platforms. You have Antifa that goes on these gaming platforms and no one's overseeing them, because our kids aren't monitored while they're on these platforms, and they're taking advantage of lawful use of these mechanisms to make basically an anarchist system that wants to take down the United States government," he said.

"And that's why this threat is so real, and that's why we in this White House and this administration are so fervently tackling it with every resource we have at the FBI," he said.

Patel confirmed that he is similarly concerned that foreign enemies from Iran, China, Cuba and Venezuela may also be involved in creating a toxic brew of radicalization in this network.

"I think they were, before President Trump sealed the border, they were coming in by the thousands, these criminals, and they were taking advantage of America and our resources that are supposed to be for our citizens who are lawfully here," he said.