Day: November 16, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-antifa-waited-until-most-people-left-trump-rally-to-attack_3579448.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-11-15-1

Supporters and likely members of the far-left Antifa network and the Black Lives Matter movement were captured on video assaulting President Donald Trump supporters in Washington on Saturday.

Thousands of Trump supporters turned out for a large march to protest against alleged election fraud. Some pro-Trump marchers also engaged in violence.

While a collection of videos showed chaos and it was difficult to discern who instigated the fights, other footage from reporters on the ground showed anti-Trump protesters assaulting pro-Trump marchers without provocation.

In at least several cases, people affiliated with Antifa or Black Lives Matter were the ones carrying out the assaults.

Trump supporters walking in downtown were assaulted by pro-Black Lives Matter supporters, the Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura reported. One man was sucker punched by a black male from behind who was holding a sign that said “Trump/Pence Out Now!” video footage showed. The slogan was promoted by Refuse Fascism, a radical left-wing group that, according to the non-profit Influence Watch, is an offshoot of the Radical Communist Party and has been present at many Antifa events.

In another case, a white man wearing a “Trump” shirt was assaulted by people dressed in gear that’s favored by Antifa, an anarcho-communist movement that’s carried out violence across the nation in recent years.

As the assaults took place, the surrounding crowd chanted “Black Lives Matter.” They also chanted, “I didn’t see [expletive],” a chant popular with Antifa and Black Lives Matter, both of which are staunchly anti-police.

In a third situation, a Trump supporter was cut in the head by assailants, described by the Daily Caller’s Richie McGinnis as part of Antifa’s so-called black bloc.

Antifa and Black Lives Matter groups before the march urged people to support counter-protest, with some groups even planning to bus people in from other cities. Hundreds of Black Lives Matter events in the United States this year have turned violent, researchers said in September.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network didn’t respond to a request for comment. Refuse Fascism appeared to blame the violence on Trump supporters.

Antifa shields were held by people on Saturday in anti-Trump crowds that were seen assaulting women, stealing phones from pro-Trump protesters, and setting fires to Trump gear.

The anti-Trump crowds “are literally chasing Trump supporters out of Black Lives Matter plaza,” Christal Hayes of USA Today reported, adding, “Counter protesters are grabbing flags and signs from Trump supporters trying to get out of the area.” Other reporters, including independent journalist Drew Hernandez, reported that violence took place against Trump supporters in and around the plaza.

Some Trump supporters were also filmed committing violence.

The right-wing Proud Boys group brawled with members of Antifa after darkness fell, videos showed.

The two groups have fought in the past, including brouhahas in New York City and Portland, Oregon.

Pro-Trump people tore down Black Lives Matter signs from a building near the White House, video from independent reporter Ford Fischer showed. Police soon intervened.

Also on Saturday night, anti-Trump activists dumped water on people eating in outdoor areas and threw lit firecrackers near the diners.

Some arrests were captured on video. The Metropolitan Police Department didn’t respond to a request for information.

Political commentator Savannah Hernandez, who recorded some of the videos, said during a livestream late Saturday, “I’ve never seen such a blatant attack on Trump supporters.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) shared one of the clips on Twitter, writing, “The left uses violence. The right uses their voice. The difference matters. And all the DC businesses that boarded up their windows know exactly what the difference is.”

A phone call between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was leaked Tuesday showing the two former leaders discussing what the then-vice president could and couldn’t tell the incoming Trump administration, with Biden telling the foreign leader that he wants to stay “deeply engaged” in their diplomatic work as a private citizen.

The call, revealed by Ukrainian politician Andriy Derkach, took place on Nov. 16, 2016, just a week after then-candidate Donald Trump won the presidential election.

During the exchange, the outgoing vice president and the then-president of Ukraine discussed the topic of visas, “something we have tried to sell to the Ukrainian people,” Poroshenko said.

“Hey, Petro. It’s Joe. How are you?” the conversation between the two began.

“Very well indeed, as usual, when I hear your voice, my dear friend,” Poroshenko responded.

The call then went dark and picked back up with Poroshenko saying, “And if President [Obama] can also support us, not only with the means, but with visa-free, that is something we have tried to sell to the Ukrainian people. And still hoping that you can come, maybe on the 21st of November, on our anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity and that would be very big delivery.”

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The vice president told Poroshenko that he was not able to visit on the date in question before warning that a future visit at a later date was dependent on how the Ukrainian responded to the incoming Trump administration.

“With regard to my coming on the 21st, as I told you I can never come … the 21st. I am going to try to come immediately after, in early December. But here’s where I am now, part of my answer to that depends on what was your conversation with our president-elect?” he asked the Ukrainian president.

The former vice president went on to divulge his view that the Trump campaign did not believe they were going to win the 2016 election and because of this, their transition team was not up to the job.

“One of the things I’ve been doing is spending — they are not making the — I’m not being critical, but they, the new administration, the incoming administration has been very, very slow on getting ready for transition. Quite frankly, like most of America, they didn’t think they were going to win the election, so they did not have a fulsome transition team. As a matter of fact, they changed their transition team. Transition is a very, very delicate and precise dance, it goes on from administration to administration over the last 100 years and it requires the exchange of classified information and the like,” Biden continued, knocking his incoming successors for their handling of the transition.

As a result, he said, he had withheld some information regarding Ukraine from his counterparts in the Trump transition team.

“And the people they put forward to be part of the transition have to be cleared to do that, just as we had to be cleared after the Bush administration, etc. They have not done that, they’re trying to catch up and do it now since they fired the guy who headed up the transition just last week. The reason I bother to tell you that is I have been somewhat limited on what I am able to tell their team about Ukraine,” he admitted.

“The truth of the matter is that the incoming administration doesn’t know a great deal about the situation. So I am meeting with the vice president-elect, who is the only one who has any foreign policy experience,” he added, speaking of Vice President Mike Pence.

During the Obama administration, Biden handled policy on Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and China, something he was selected to handle due to his 30 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His handling of Ukraine policy came under the microscope last year during President Trump’s impeachment trial.

The president was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House over his actions related to Ukraine, specifically that he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about investigations of Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company heavily involved in corruption.

Derkach, responsible for leaking the call, is facing his own legal problems. Derkach, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician, was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department last week on charges of foreign interference in the US election.

Derkach has been repeatedly identified as a malign actor by US intelligence agencies, notably gaining attention after meeting with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani last year to provide information on Biden.

While speaking to the then-vice president, Poroshenko could be heard saying that Biden played “an enormous role in bringing peace to my country, and actually save my country. This is my real feeling.”

Biden thanked Poroshenko for his kind words before divulging some of his plans for after he left the White House.

“Well, you’re awfully generous. I don’t plan on going away. As a private citizen, I plan on staying deeply engaged in the endeavor that you have begun and we have begun.

“At least that’s my objective, that’s my objective. But if I go beforehand, I’m worried that they don’t know enough, they will think I’m trying to game them. They will think I am trying to put them in a corner. They will question my motives in going before they are fully briefed. And I’m sure you understand that, you’re a good negotiator,” Biden said toward the end of the leaked conversation.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.