Antifa’s Nonprofit Infrastructure

Antifa’s Nonprofit Infrastructure
The domestic terror group has the IRS to thank for its low overhead.
By Daniel Greenfield

Antifa, like the Democrat Party, is built on the model of nonprofit support infrastructure.

In the party, that means everything except the most direct campaign activities are outsourced to networks of nonprofits that use tax-deductible donations for everything from voter registration and outreach, media and messaging, to funding election infrastructure ‘Zuckerbucks’ style.

Unlike its Black Lives Matter allies, the Antifa networks don’t have centralized nonprofits. Antifa’s illegal activities and the criminal tendencies of its participants, many of whom are involved in a variety of radical groups, some of them domestic terrorist organizations, makes that a non-starter. However, unlike conservative groups which have been ‘debanked’ from Big Tech fundraising platforms, Antifa gains support through leftist 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) groups which includes fundraising platforms, bail funds, street medics and promotional media organizations.

Front Page Magazine had previously reported exclusively on how the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund raises money for the perpetrators of Antifa violence through the Action Network, a 501(c)(4) with an allied 501(c)(3) that is also utilized by the DNC. We have also investigated the more general bail funds that are 501(c)(3) nonprofits and were promoted by celebrities during the riots on the understanding that they would be helping to spring the rioters from jail.

At least one Bail Project “disrupter” was also caught attending Antifa rallies and distributing its materials. And a number of those released by bail funds across the country have been linked to Antifa. While bail funds didn’t only bail out Antifa, its members tended to be some of the most flagrantly violent and confrontational, and so were more likely to be arrested and bailed out.

Antifa actions tend to be promoted by sites like Unicorn Riot and It’s Going Down. Unicorn Riot is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It’s one example of organizations that may be described as ‘antifa-adjacent’ that are not officially Antifa, but appear to share values and goals while providing infrastructure that is utilized by members of the group.

Another example is Task Force Butler, a 501(c)(3) that claims to be an organization of veterans monitoring extremists, but some of whose members described themselves as “anti-fascists” and whose resources have been promoted by Antifa elements. Founded by the husband of a New York Times editor, it received a splashy Rolling Stone profile under the subheader, “Antifa as Apple Pie”.

Task Force Butler occupies a convenient middle ground between Antifa and the media, fitting into the niche of “extremist tracking organizations” utilized by the media to back up smear campaigns, like accusing Chaya Raichik or @LibsofTikTok of threatening the lives of gay people by reporting on the sexual abuse of children, and on the other hand its guides have been promoted by Unicorn Riot which quoted Eugene Antifa’s praise of it as being “addressed, in very general terms, to anti-fascist researchers and community safety practitioners”.

Operating more directly at riots and protests are the street medics.

When Kyle Rittenhouse fought for his life during the Kenosha riots, one of the men he shot, Gaige Grosskreutz, was wearing a “paramedic” cap. Described as a “leader among Milwaukee-area street medics”, his presence cast light on the role of street medics. While Antifa activists and the media claim that street medics are non-violent and non-partisan, Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz after the street medic pointed a gun at him. That’s not non-violent.

Street medics often operate as adjuncts of Antifa, BLM and other leftist rioters. Many have no apparent medical training at all. Their primary function is providing support to protesters by treating them after contact with tear gas and other injuries received in confrontations with police. During riots, they will act to shield rioters from the police and even try to smuggle them past the police under the guise of treating their injuries. The police are aware of this, but also wary of the bad publicity that comes from confronting leftist activists posing as medical personnel.

Grosskreutz went into action by first disabling his phone’s facial recognition to prepare for an arrest. Street medic guides routinely advise members on how to deal with police. Despite all this, many street medic organizations are also registered nonprofits.

“‘Antifa’ doesn’t just crack heads,” a street medic claimed. “Folks who identify as antifascist also are the ones helping to operate a lot of the community aid efforts happening right now since the coronavirus. They’re the ones stepping up to fill these voids… There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the folks in the street. We’re not scary.”

Many street medic operations are 501(c)(3) nonprofits registered with the IRS despite the fact that tax codes specifically prohibit organizations that either commit criminal activity or spend all of their time engaged in protests, even non-violent ones, from maintaining a 501(c)(3) status.

But as the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, Internal Radical Service by David Horowitz and John Perazzo, has shown, the IRS routinely allows leftist nonprofits to violate tax codes and the law. Meanwhile, the IRS continues to single out conservative nonprofits for special scrutiny.

While Antifa does not have a single nonprofit, there are numerous nonprofits, including 501(c)(3) organizations that play a vital role in providing infrastructure for it at every level.

Nonprofits function as Antifa’s media, treat Antifa rioters at the scene of riots and bail them out if they’re arrested. As a decentralized domestic terror network, Antifa’s operations are every bit as diversified as its core action groups. And while there is no single coordinating organization, one of the closest things to it may be a component of a party that includes members of Congress.

The Democratic Socialists of America, whose members include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush, also has an Antifascist Working Group. AFWG states that its mission is to “organize with local antifascists in opposing the far right” and create “mass mobilizations to counter the far right.”

While that language is somewhat ambiguous, a description of one event relates how the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA) AntiFascist Working Group (AFWG) “collaborated with other organizations, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), to mobilize approximately 140 antifascists against the Proud Boys (PBs).”

The only picture of their targets shows a black man, a Latino woman and a few elderly people protesting against vaccine mandates.

While the DSA is a 501(c)(4), it does include an allied 501(c)(3), the DSA Fund, that promotes its political work, including making “grants to the national organization of Democratic Socialists of America for its educational work”.

Antifa’s operations are intimately entangled with the Left. Even while committing numerous crimes, leftist thugs rely on nonprofit allies to supplement their core action groups and use tax-deductible money to cover their expenses. By utilizing allied nonprofits, Antifa can operate cheaply and avoid law enforcement scrutiny of its finances. But those operations depend on the willingness of the IRS to look the other way. Congress has the opportunity to challenge the IRS to enforce tax code regulations and end the Antifa violence that has overtaken our streets.

Original Article