#Ted Cruz convenes Senate hearing on Antifa ‘terror attacks’

Sen. Ted Cruz says a Tuesday Senate subcommittee hearing will focus on Antifa “terror attacks” during recent anti-police brutality protests.

Cruz said in a Fox News interview that the hearing would analyze “horrific violence” in cities during protests against the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.

“We’re seeing our country torn apart. Violent anarchists and Marxists are exploiting protests to transform them into riots and direct assaults on the lives and safety of their fellow Americans,” the Texas Republican said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, which Cruz chairs, will stream the hearing online, with three panels of witnesses.

The hearing’s first panel features Democratic Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to discuss riots in Portland, where federal officials have engaged with violent activists in two months of nightly battles.

Authorities say several federal agents have been blinded by high-powered lasers wielded by Portland rioters, but some Democrats, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) dismiss alleged Anfita violence in Portland as a “myth.”

Department of Homeland Security acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli and US attorney for northern Texas Erin Neely Cox will testify in a second panel about efforts to track down and prosecute violent activists.

A third panel features a mix of conservative and liberal experts, including George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, citizen journalist Andy Ngo and Portland Urban League President Nkenge Harmon Johnson.

Attorney General William Barr testified last week to the House Judiciary Committee that Antifa, or so-called “Anti-fascist,” groups are “heavily represented in the recent riots.”

“Antifa can be best thought of, I think, as an umbrella term for what is essentially a movement comprised of loosely organized groups around the country,” Barr said. “The groups, as I say, are loosely organized, but they are definitely organized, but since they have an anarchic temperament they don’t get along very well with each other, so I’m not suggesting it’s a national organization that moves nationally. They tend to get organized for an event and there’s a lot of organization right before an event occurs, but we see a lot of the organization during the mob violence.”