Kyle Shideler Testifies at the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Political Violence

CSP Director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Kyle Shideler testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution. Watch the testimony below:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Welch, distinguished senators. I would like to thank you for the invitation to testify today about the threat our country faces from growing political violence.

In my capacity at the Center for Security Policy, one of the things I’m most proud of is our program to provide educational briefings to law enforcement officers at the federal, state, and local levels. And for the five years of this program’s operation, the number one most requested briefing topic that we have been asked to provide has been on the topic of Antifa and related left-wing extremist groups. The reason it has been the most requested topic is not because, contrary to media reports, Antifa does not exist. America’s law enforcement knows it exists because they see the effects every day. The reason it is the most requested topic is because they cannot get accurate and quality information about the threat. Until recently, the federal government has failed to define the extensive nature of this threat and has demonstrated a history of dismissing or reducing charges against left-wing extremists.

But despite this failing, we have seen convictions for acts of political violence by Antifa members who were identified as such. In 2021, officers and citizens were injured in a violent, pre-planned riot carried out by Antifa. The San Diego district attorney successfully secured convictions against 11 Antifa members, including on charges of conspiracy to riot. In 2023, the state of Florida successfully sued Antifa members under the FACE Act, securing civil fines and felony pleas for their attack on pregnancy crisis centers. This is just one case, but in the five months after the Dobbs decision was leaked, more than 100 churches, pregnancy resource centers, and pro-life organizations across the country were attacked.

Mr. Knowles has already mentioned the case against Brian DiPippa and the federal government’s guilty plea, but I think it is worth adding that Mr. DiPippa was also the web creator for It’s Going Down, an Antifa website which has for years published both ideological manifestos and tactical instructions for aspiring Antifa members, including a 2007 Forming an Antifa Group manual, which I first brought to the attention of this committee when I testified before it in August of 2020.

But what is Antifa? Well, as a recent Department of Justice indictment accurately describes, quote: “Antifa is a militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals in small groups, ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and system of law. Antifa adherents have espoused insurrection and advocated violence to affect the policy and conduct of the U.S. government by intimidation and coercion.”

That’s a good working definition, which would bring U.S. law enforcement into line with the definitions which are utilized by other Western governments, which also have an Antifa threat. That would include Germany and Sweden.

These networks of small, direct action groups are connected through ideologically aligned organizations, online platforms, and support networks, which provide significant amounts of material support. But much of this material support is in the form of services rather than financial transactions. One example, the website Abolition Media posts communiques from the PFLP, the ELN, the PKK, and the NPA, all of them designated communist terror groups. That alone is actionable material support for terrorism. But it also posts claims of responsibility for anarchist arson attacks and propaganda on behalf of Antifa members currently in prison for violent attacks in the United States, Germany, Chile, Greece, and Hungary. The site distributes calls for actions and organizes efforts for Antifa groups across international borders and even posted an anarchist manual discussing the value of, and I quote, complex coordinated terrorist attacks.

If this site were promoting and advocating violence for Al-Qaeda, there would be absolutely no question in the minds of US authorities that it serves as a media arm for a terrorist organization. According to a recent article by journalist Hudson Crozier, Abolition Media is just one of 100 such websites hosted on NoBlogs, a blogging suite provided by the Italy-based “Autistici/Inventati (AI)” Collective, which provides websites, emails, digital encryption tools to Antifa and related left-wing extremist groups, all while hiding their personal data from law enforcement.

Very similarly, the International Antifa Defense Fund has distributed over a quarter of million dollars to 800 Antifa members across 26 countries, including not just for legal support, but up to 20% has gone to security improvements and emergency relocation costs for Antifa members. It would be a reasonable avenue of investigation to determine if funds have gone to help fugitive Antifa members avoid arrest.

I look forward to working with the committee on ways U.S. policy and legislation might address the threat posed by Antifa and related left-wing extremist groups.