Glenn Beck has spent a decade and a half trying to make the case that various progressive organizations, activists, and funders are radicals bent on destroying the country. The right-wing commentator is a constant font of conspiracy theories who famously illustrates purported connections — often extraordinarily tenuous — between various entities on his chalkboard. But now, according to Beck, his rantings against longtime enemies are garnering attention from federal law enforcement.

“The FBI showed up to my house to discuss my TV show exposing Antifa's network,” Beck posted to social media on Monday, referencing the umbrella term for a broad and decentralized grouping of militant far-left activists who say they oppose fascism. “If you are a member of Antifa or providing material or financial support for Antifa, I might be a little concerned because the FBI is DEADASS serious about investigating you.” 

Beck appended a clip from his radio show in which he said that he had met for two hours on Saturday with agents sent at the behest of extremely online FBI Director Kash Patel.

“This is information that I first gave on Fox years ago,” he added. “Let me just say this: Finally, we have an administration and an FBI director that is willing to go in deep.”

Beck’s claim of FBI interest in his antifa report comes as President Donald Trump and his administration are attempting to reframe the concept of antifa as a framework to target their political enemies. Trump responded to the September killing of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk by seeking to implicate as many of his political opponents as possible, and he has ordered federal law enforcement, including the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, to target nebulously defined “organized political violence.” In recent days, Republican officials have sought to blur the distinction between antifa activists and protesters who plan to participate in Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies.

On October 8, at Trump’s White House roundtable on antifa, Patel promised that his bureau would “find every single seed money, donor organization and funding mechanism that we have.” 

That same day, Beck published to YouTube his “off the cuff” review of what he mocked as “ANTIFA’s ‘De-centralized’ Network.” He explicitly pitched his work as “a starting point for people at the FBI or Justice Department as they begin investigating leads.” 

Beck’s list of purportedly antifa-linked organizations worthy of federal investigation meshed well with reports about the administration’s targets of interest, including Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and ActBlue, the platform Democratic candidates and affiliated organizations use to marshall small-donor fundraising.

Beck claimed to have “split antifa up into three different categories: street groups and soldiers, support groups, and funding sources.” He said that the first category had caused “carnage,” but that any investigation into antifa must go further.

Among antifa “support groups,” Beck included the National Lawyers Guild, which he identified as the “legal arm for antifa” because its members monitor the law enforcement response to protests for abuses, and the Community Justice Exchange, which he criticized for “bailing people out” in 2020 during the “George Floyd riots.”

Based on those extraordinarily tenuous claims linking the National Lawyers Guild and Community Justice Exchange to antifa, Beck went on to identify organizations that fund those two groups as antifa “funding sources.” Those included Beck’s old enemy the Tides Foundation for having a relationship with the Community Justice Exchange; the Alliance for Global Justice, in large part for giving the National Lawyers Guild “over a million dollars from 2018 to 2019 alone”; and Soros’ Open Society Foundations on the grounds that it funded the Alliance for Global Justice. 

Beck also listed the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and Schwab Charitable Fund. These are both donor-advised funds that allow individuals to donate their own money to charities using an online portal managed by a financial institution — though Beck suggested that the financial institutions themselves were financing antifa in some way, saying, “If I had my money in Schwab or Fidelity, I don't know if I would have it. They’re giving to the people who are supporting these people.”

Beck further listed crowdfunding platforms including ActBlue, Patreon, and others, but he did not indicate the channels by which money had moved through those platforms or to whom.

“I’m not accusing anyone here. I’m just saying. This is pretty much off the top of my head. I’m just showing the connections that have a very strong odor attached to them,” Beck concluded. He added, “This one chalkboard alone is enough for the Trump administration just to start.” 

And the Trump administration, according to Beck, was apparently interested.

The FBI calling on Beck’s expertise is both a comical revelation about the ineptitude of Kash Patel’s bureau — and a five-alarm fire for civil liberties. The Trump administration’s methods may be unserious, but its leaders are extremely focused on punishing their political opponents at all costs.