Congressional Republicans introduce bill targeting riot funders; senators want to expand RICO
By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several Republican cosponsors, introduced the Stop Financial Underwriting of Nefarious Demonstrations and Extremist Riots (Stop FUNDERs) Act to hold accountable financiers of rioters and vandals.
The one-page bill would amend 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1) to add “rioting,” as defined in the Anti-Riot Act, to the list of racketeering predicate offenses. Doing so would enable the Department of Justice “to use the full suite of RICO tools against entities who fund or coordinate violent interstate riots,” Cruz said.
He’s referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which allows for extended criminal penalties for those involved in racketeering. Racketeering involves “any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical,” as well as numerous fraud-related crimes, including gambling, mail fraud, wire fraud, immigration fraud, among others, Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute explains.
“Every American has the right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest, but not to commit violence. Domestic NGOs and foreign adversaries fund and use riots in the United States to undermine the security and prosperity of Americans,” Cruz said.
His bill would give the DOJ added RICO tools that could be used against organizations and individuals who repeatedly fund or coordinate violent interstate riots. They include joint liability and group prosecution, conspiracy charges, asset forfeiture, and enhanced criminal penalties, Cruz said. The goal is also to “deter abuse of nonprofit status and expose hidden financial pipelines behind politically motivated violence,” he said.
Only Republicans in the Senate signed on as cosponsors: Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
“Radical, left-wing groups who fund acts of violence, coordinate attacks against law enforcement, and spearhead the destruction of property must be stopped,” Cornyn said. “This legislation would add rioting to the list of racketeering offenses to crack down on this lawless behavior while ensuring the First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceful protest are protected.”
U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyn, R-Texas, filed companion legislation in the House.
“It is time we empower our law enforcement with a commonsense tool to treat these violent mobs, their funding sources, and their organizers as the criminal enterprises they are by passing the Stop FUNDERS Act,” she said. “Since the days of the George Floyd riots, to the violence we see across American cities and college campuses today, it is obvious there are well funded, well outfitted, and highly coordinated efforts to plan and execute violent and potentially deadly missions of chaos and mayhem. This is organized crime, and we need to attack it as such.”
The bill was filed after organized anti-Israel riots exploded across college campuses nationwide after the Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. Training manuals were published by pro-Palestinian groups to take over U.S. college campuses, rioters targeted Jewish students, locked them out of classrooms and buildings and physically assaulted them, resulting in lawsuits and congressional investigations.
Under President Donald Trump, Ivy League colleges where significant antisemitism was reported were threatened with losing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, accreditation, cancellation of visa approvals among other actions if they didn’t change their policies to protect Jewish students. In response, some universities sued, others complied.
Cruz, Hawley and others also called for foreign students’ visas to be revoked who were involved in riots and advocating antisemitism, a policy their former colleague and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio began implementing.
More recently, riots against ICE officers in the last few months also appear to be coordinated and financed by several groups, prompting a Department of Justice investigation. Hawley is leading an investigation into the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, arguing the violence wasn’t “spontaneous.”
Within the first six months of the Trump administration, attacks against ICE officers have increased by 830% from California to Nebraska to New York, The Center Square reported.
Recent examples include threats to kill or physically harm federal agents and their family members, with recent shootings targeting ICE officers and Border Patrol facilities in Texas, and ICE officers in California and New York, The Center Square reported.
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