Attorney General William Barr told “Verdict with Ted Cruz” this week that the Department of Justice has hundreds of investigations underway into the violent riots that have occurred across the country in recent weeks, including investigations into the far-left extremist organization Antifa.
“The federal government is best positioned to address this kind of violence and lawlessness after it occurs because we don’t have FBI agents walking the beat,” Barr said. “And in fact, when the real violence started around May 25, 26, and so forth, we started using our joint terrorist task forces around the country. And there are 35 of them around the country. It involves all state and local in those jurisdictions and all the federal agencies. And it’s the system we designed to follow terrorists. And now they are starting to go full bore, cranking out investigations, indictments against the people who are involved in this violence.”
Barr said that they already had “scores of indictments already” against individuals who had been involved in the rioting and destruction of property. Barr added that there are already approximately 500 investigations underway into the crimes that have occurred from the rioting.
“We are seeing strong evidence of coordination in many of these violent episodes,” Barr continued. “Fundamentally, what you have here is you have demonstrators, some of them go there with the intent of demonstrating, but you have a group of provocateurs and agitators, sometimes a significant group, that try to convert those into violent activity. And they seem to be very well coordinated when they show up.”
“A number of them are associated with the movement called Antifa, but they go by various names, but frequently anarchistic,” Barr continued. “They want to tear down the country. They are different than many traditional groups and frequently the signs of coordination and activity are very close to the event itself. So like the morning of or the day before, and things are very fast-moving. But we definitely see signs out on the street of communication, of organization, of preplanning, prepositioning of things. So it’s definitely organized activity.”
WATCH:
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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
CO-HOST MICHAEL KNOWLES: “As riots, vandalism, and even all-out autonomous zones combined with calls to defund the police, we sit down with the nation’s top cop, Attorney General William Barr. This is a Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I’m Michael Knowles. We will get to the Attorney General in just one second. But first, I want to thank all of you who have listened and watched the show. We’ve now hit over 10 million views. That is more than, I think, we thought was going to happen. So, thank you so much and if you haven’t already please go over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a five-star review and subscribe. Now, we’re in a new location today, not our usual studio. Senator, you have brought a friend. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General, for being here. You know, the news broke just moments ago that you will testify before the House Judiciary Committee next month. So we are honored that you would sit down with us first and very much appreciate it. I want to get right into this. Obviously, there’s so much going on. And it occurs to me, we have a man who writes the laws. We have the man who enforces the laws. And we have popular calls for utter lawlessness in the country. How do we restore order?”
ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: “Well, it’s going to take both state and local government as well as federal government. The federal government is best positioned to address this kind of violence and lawlessness after it occurs because we don’t have FBI agents walking the beat. And in fact, when the real violence started around May 25, 26, and so forth, we started using our joint terrorist task forces around the country. And there are 35 of them around the country. It involves all state and local in those jurisdictions and all the federal agencies. And it’s the system we designed to follow terrorists. And now they are starting to go full bore, cranking out investigations, indictments against the people who are involved in this violence. So we’ve had scores of indictments already for such things as arson, destruction of federal property, things like that. And we have right now about 500 investigations underway. So it’s picking up pace and we are committed to holding accountable the people who are engaged in this. But we still have to try to stop it before it happens. And that’s where the burden is right now on state and local. And in many places, they’re not stepping up to the plate. They’re not doing their job.”
SENATOR TED CRUZ (R-TX): “So I know it’s early, but how much indication are you all seeing of coordination and planning rather than spontaneous acts of violence?”
BARR: “We are seeing strong evidence of coordination in many of these violent episodes. Fundamentally, what you have here is you have demonstrators, some of them go there with the intent of demonstrating, but you have a group of provocateurs and agitators, sometimes a significant group, that try to convert those into violent activity. And they seem to be very well coordinated when they show up. A number of them are associated with the movement called Antifa, but they go by various names, but frequently anarchistic. They want to tear down the country. They are different than many traditional groups and frequently the signs of coordination and activity are very close to the event itself. So like the morning of or the day before, and things are very fast-moving. But we definitely see signs out on the street of communication, of organization, of preplanning, prepositioning of things. So it’s definitely organized activity.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.
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