An intelligence report produced for law-enforcement agencies ahead of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally suggested that left-wing demonstrators were “terrorists” and as responsible for street violence as white nationalists. According to The Guardian, the May 2017 report was produced by the Regional Organized Crime Information Center—one of six federally funded Regional Intelligence Sharing System (RISS) Centers in the U.S. The report frames political street violence in America as an equal battle between “an alliance between anarchists and communists to confront and defeat fascists and white supremacists by whatever means necessary” and “anti-antifa, a loose collection of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klanners, white identity groups, and a group called the alt-right.” The report reproduces a description by Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel claiming the anti-fascists are “terrorists.” Michael German, a former FBI agent and far-right specialist, said: “What it seems to do is completely whitewash the history of white-supremacist violence in this country.”
