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A top FBI official<\/span> toed the White House line about antifa as a major domestic terror threat at a House hearing on Thursday \u2014 but he struggled to answer questions about the leaderless movement.<\/p>\n Pressed repeatedly by a top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee about antifa\u2019s size and location, the operations director of the FBI\u2019s national security division didn\u2019t have answers.<\/p>\n At one point, the FBI\u2019s Michael Glasheen fumbled with his hands as he tried to find an answer for the question from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, the investigations are active,\u201d Glasheen said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said antifa is a terrorist organization. Tell us, as a committee, how did you come to that?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Glasheen\u2019s comments came three months after President Donald Trump proclaimed<\/a> that antifa is a \u201cmajor terror organization,\u201d even though it the broad political movement does not have a hierarchy or leadership<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump followed his designation with a presidential memo<\/a> on September 25 directing the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate and prosecute antifascists<\/a> and other adherents of \u201canti-Americanism.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The formless nature of the antifascist movement, however, appears to have flummoxed the FBI as it attempts to carry out Trump\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n Glasheen called antifa \u201cour primary concern right now\u201d and called it \u201cthe most immediate, violent threat\u201d from domestic terrorists. That led Thompson to ask him where antifa is located and how many members it has.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are building out the infrastructure right now,\u201d Glasheen said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what does that mean?\u201d Thompson shot back. \u201cI\u2019m just \u2014 we\u2019re trying to get the information. You said antifa is a terrorist organization. Tell us, as a committee, how did you come to that? Where do they exist? How many members do they have in the United States as of right now?\u201d<\/p>\n Glasheen visibly struggled<\/a> to answer the question before saying that the FBI\u2019s investigations were \u201cactive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s very fluid. It\u2019s ongoing for us to understand that. The same, no different than Al Qaeda or ISIS,\u201d he said at another point.<\/p>\n \u201c No different than Al Qaeda or ISIS.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Glasheen is a veteran FBI official who was appointed<\/a> to serve as the Terrorist Screening Center director under the Biden administration in 2023 and selected<\/a> by current FBI Director Kash Patel as one of the agency\u2019s five operations directors earlier this year.<\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s shift to focusing on alleged left-wing violence comes despite researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies finding<\/a> that despite an increase this year, it remains \u201cmuch lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has long obsessed<\/a> over the \u201cthreat\u201d that antifa poses to the U.S<\/a>. His fixation appears to have been supercharged<\/a> by the September 10 slaying of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk<\/a> in Utah, allegedly by a shooter who engraved one unused bullet with the words \u201cHey fascist! catch!\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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