Raymond Holcomb, a retired FBI agent who helped form the first Fly Team in 2002, said the unit was created to speed up the flow of critical information between the field and headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Mueller wasn’t happy with the reporting system,” he said. “He wanted to be able to send experienced investigators to any location on very short notice so they could report back to headquarters and give the ground truth,” meaning facts reported firsthand from the field.
Not all former—and perhaps current—FBI agents agree with the director’s assessment in congressional testimony that Antifa is “a movement or an ideology,” and “not a group or organization.” Holcomb argued that, in some respects, Antifa does resemble a terrorist organization. “They’re extremely well-organized,” he said. “I would suspect that government agencies, whether it’s the FBI or others, are looking at them and trying to discern if there’s any international influence or support. I suspect that’s why they’re out there.”
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