President Donald Trump's administration believes that it has identified the "leader of Antifa" in Portland, Oregon, according to a new report.
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security flagged a 29-year-old named Chandler Patey, who lives near an ICE facility in South Portland, and lets protesters use his bathroom, and described him as the "leader of Antifa" in the area, according to internal DHS documents Klippenstein reviewed.
"The government’s elevation of an ordinary citizen like Patey to terrorist mastermind is the result of a subtle bureaucratic process revealed in this and other DHS documents I’ve obtained," Klippenstein reported. "They show that since almost the beginning of the Trump administration, DHS has been desperate to pull together evidence—no matter how thin—of an epidemic of left-wing domestic terrorism."
Fox News has helped amplify the hype surrounding Patey by describing his apartment as an "Antifa Safehouse" on a recent broadcast of Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters respective shows. Klippenstein wrote that this commentary was "idiotic."
"This kind of idiocy is hardly unprecedented by the standards of cable news, of course; but the federal government is buying into the hysteria, too," he reported. "Documents leaked to me show Patey and countless other American protesters have been branded as domestic terrorists. As a result, their private information is now being collected and stored in a DHS intelligence system shown below."
