As parts of Los Angeles burn under the fury of riots, there are burning questions in Washington about who instigated the protests against immigration enforcement operations and whether any funding is coming from foreign sources.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News the bureau is investigating the money trail behind those organizing and promoting the demonstrations spreading across the country.
“The FBI is investigating any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots,” Patel said in a statement sent late Monday to Just the News.
After initial—and largely peaceful—demonstrations in response to several immigration raids in Los Angeles late last week, the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests escalated over the weekend to include more than 1,000 rioters filmed assaulting immigration officers, burning self-driving vehicles, looting, temporarily closing down at least one city highway, and throwing concrete rocks at law enforcement officers.
The images of violent rioters waving Mexican and other foreign flags as cars burned in the background circulated the country and drew attention from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
Month-old footage of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum threatening to “mobilize” over legislative proposals to tax remittances to Mexico resurfaced in light of the protests, raising concerns about whether rhetoric from south of the border could be inflaming tensions. Sheinbaum responded to the violence on Monday, condemning it but promising Mexican government commitment to all Mexicans, “regardless of immigration status.”
“[You] got the outside influences…the Mexican flags and all these people and the Mexican president…Sheinbaum,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. “[All] these people…they hate this country, and they want to change this country, and it’ll turn, basically, the country into a Third World hellhole.”
Biggs said that he has “no doubt” that foreign influence is driving the protests, at least in part.
“Not a doubt in my mind. Not a doubt in my mind,” he said. “I mean, even if you just take the statements of President Sheinbaum of Mexico, tacitly, she’s basically encouraging this,” Biggs continued.
Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said he fears some of the protesters are being paid, and it is essential for Congress to follow that money trail.
“Well, I do think it’s important for Congress to raise those questions and do that, look into it and find out what we can,” he told Just the News. “I also think the Justice Department will play an important role in trying to see these kind of things through, because, again, these ICE agents are there simply carrying out their responsibility.”
Former FBI Executive Assistant Director Chris Piehota told Just the News that the FBI likely began looking immediately into how these violent protests were sparked.
Law enforcement likely focusing on sources of funding
“[What] they will do is they’ll start looking for those connections between the financial and logistical networks that these people depend on to create these, I would say planned disturbances or augmented disturbances,” Piehota told the John Solomon Reports podcast.
“So you’re going to see them start going after some of those, you know, supporting functions. So you can cut down on some of the people who, basically, they have become professional rabble-rousers and troublemakers. They get financed around the around the country to show up at different events and cause problems,” he continued.
“So yeah, I think you’re gonna see the FBI make a much more aggressive push into some of those areas to cut off their funding and their logistics,” Piehota added.
One group involved with the protests last week that eventually evolved into riots over the weekend is the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) — a Marxist group with reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party. That group has also helped organize the anti-Israel protests recently ravaging college campuses.
PSL said that the demonstrators have “taken a courageous stand against Trump’s reign of terror targeting immigrant families” and that those “taking to the streets” are being falsely labeled as “rioters.”
It’s long and I don’t want to upset anyone so here’s the link if you want to read the entire article
