DISTRACTED

Trump’s Antifa Obsession Diverted Feds From Right-Wing Threats: Officials

Requests for resources to better track white supremacists online were denied and one official was so alarmed he went to the inspector general.

President Trump’s obsession with the bogeyman threat of antifa led law enforcement agencies to direct resources away from right-wing threats and may have affected their ability to anticipate and prepare for the far-right attack on the Capitol, current and former officials told The New York Times. The DOJ pulled some prosecutors and FBI agents away from assignments focused on white supremacists and asked them to instead investigate anarchist groups like antifa over summer, the officials said. One official was concerned enough to go to the agency’s independent inspector general.

Officials said efforts to alert colleagues to white supremacist activity were tamped down and mentions of “domestic terrorism” were discouraged. Requests for funding to track white supremacist activity online were denied. Meanwhile, threats of violence at the Capitol were visible on social media in the days preceding the Jan. 6 attack, an event for which law enforcement agencies have admitted they were unprepared.