Expert Michael Balboni explains how Trump can use RICO and other existing laws to combat Antifa after designating the group as a terrorist organization.
After President Donald Trump announced that he was designating the leftist agitation group Antifa as a terrorist organization in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, one expert said the president has “powerful” tools at his disposal to dismantle the group.
Michael Balboni is an attorney and former member of the New York State Assembly and Senate. During his time in office, he chaired the state senate’s Homeland Security Committee, and was later appointed to the state’s Domestic Terrorism Task Force under Governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul.
U.S. terrorism laws under the Immigration and Nationality Act only apply to foreign groups, so there is no federal statute for prosecuting domestic organizations as terrorists. Trump still has a tool available to combat Antifa, though, in the form of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
“RICO doesn’t relate only to one specific act and one specific time”, Balboni told Fox News Digital. “It could be an analysis of an ongoing criminal enterprise.”
He explained that for a defendant to be convicted under the RICO Act, there must be an existence of an enterprise, a pattern of racketeering activity within the past decade, a demonstration that the threat of continued criminal behavior exists and that the defendant must be associated with or employed by the enterprise.
