The Portland General Defense Committee publishes a financial accountability page on its website… Bail bonds ranging from several hundred dollars up t… - Andy Ngo

On September 5, rioters marched to attack the East Precinct, as they had done many times before. But that night, they hurled lit firebombs for the first time. Over the previous months, Portland Police had confiscated unused Molotov cocktails, but none had actually been used at the riots. However, that night, a masked rioter hurled a firebomb in the direction of a line of police. It fell short of its target and instead landed at the feet of a group of protesters. Two people were set on fire,…

As bad as the riots already were, city council and local politicians actively worked to undermine the federal government’s attempts to protect federal property. In effect, they were cobelligerents with antifa in their uprising. When Acting Secretary Chad Wolf of DHS flew to Portland from Washington, DC, in mid-July to survey the extent of the violence and destruction, local officials preemptively refused to meet with him. ‘We’re aware that [DHS leadership is] here. We wish they weren’t,’ tweeted Mayor Wheeler. ‘We haven’t been invited to meet with them, and if we were, we would decline.’ Oregon Democratic senator Ron Wyden called federal officers an ‘occupying army.’ Oregon governor Kate Brown echoed and amplified the false media headlines. ‘This is a democracy, not a dictatorship. We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles,’ Governor Brown tweeted.

In my time on the ground in Portland, I observed sophisticated communication strategies between different antifa units during the protests. As in CHAZ, they communicated via walkie-talkies and sometimes subtle hand signals. Each faction of antifa served a function they had been trained for. Drivers carried supplies like water bottles, some of which were frozen solid and later used as projectiles against police. ‘Scouts’ on foot, bicycles, or motorcycles watched the perimeter and kept an eye on every person entering the area. Those who looked suspicious were flagged and closely followed or monitored.