As protests over the death of George Floyd turned violent in recent days, Donald Trump and his administration detected the hand of a political organisation that experts say is not really an organisation at all.
The object of the president’s ire is known as the “Antifa” — shorthand for “anti-fascist” — movement, a decentralised group of far-left activists who advocate using violence to combat white supremacists and neo-Nazis and trace their roots to 1960s Europe.
The president tweeted that the US would be “designating Antifa as a Terrorist Organization”, although only foreign groups can be classified as such under US law. Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, called Antifa “a big element of this protest” and Mr Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien blamed Antifa for stoking the unrest.