FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday that federal investigators were looking into the funding sources for left-wing groups behind organized protest movements that have resulted in rioting on city streets and civil rights violations on college campuses. 

Patel made the comments while appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a marathon oversight hearing, where he faced dozens of questions from Democrats and Republicans about the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk last week. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) urged Patel to investigate the financing of far-left groups that the Texas senator said may have influenced the suspected shooter and supported protests in recent years that saw instances of rioting or other illegal activity.

“As I’ve always said, Senator, money doesn’t lie. We’ve been following the money, and that’s what we’re doing, issuing a lawful process to organizations involved with criminal activity because the money has got to come from somewhere,” Patel told Cruz. 

Cruz stressed his belief that the bankrolling of these political efforts has led to the riots in major cities and the surge of campus antisemitism in recent years, and the importance of identifying the individuals and organizations responsible.

“I want to encourage you in the course of this investigation, absolutely go after anyone who aided and abetted, but I want to more broadly encourage you: follow the money. The violence we are seeing is not purely organic. There is, I believe, significant money that is spreading dissension, that is spreading violence,” Cruz said. 

“Both the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of a couple of years ago, and the pro-open borders riots in Los Angeles and other cities of this past year, I believe there was significant money behind those riots. I’m not the only person who noticed at the antisemitic protests and violent protests on college campuses last year, that many of the tents all matched,” he added.

Cruz, who introduced legislation in July to add rioting to the list of predicate offenses under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act — which targets organized crime — added that he believes the money “should be tracked and prosecuted under RICO.”

Following a series of questions about the suspect’s motive in killing Kirk and reports that others had prior knowledge of the suspect’s plans, Cruz urged Patel to probe the funding sources of Antifa specifically in connection with the shooting, and called on the Trump administration to designate the far-left political movement as a terrorist organization. 

“I would encourage the administration to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization and go systematically after Antifa. They’ve committed acts of violence all over the country, and the shell casings [found with the weapon used to kill Kirk] have multiple references to slogans that Antifa has popularized. I believe there is considerable money funding it,” Cruz said. 

The Texas senator noted in the context of some online celebration of Kirk’s killing that while free speech remains protected under the First Amendment, violent activity does not. 

“Nazis and Klansmen can march in the streets and even though their speeches are bigoted and horrible and racist, the First Amendment protects it. Conduct, however, is not protected by the First Amendment, particularly conduct that is violent,” Cruz said. “Violent conduct — that is threatening to others, that is harassing others, that is injuring or in this case murdering others — is most assuredly not protected by the First Amendment, and so I would encourage you and the FBI to focus on conduct. Now, speech can direct, speech can guide you to those who engaged in conduct.”

Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Patel discussed their shared view that social media is “one of the instruments radicalizing America and inciting violence” and their support for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the legal provision that shields social media platforms from legal liability for the content their users post.

“After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there seems to be one refrain from everybody, and that’s about the effect of social media,” Graham said. “These companies are taking content that makes you sick, that could get you killed, get you poisoned, and there’s nothing we can do about it under our law … because of Section 230. If your child is being sexually groomed online or bullied online, and you go to the social media company and ask them to take it down [and if] they refuse, you have like zero rights.”

“My belief is based on the data, and the data shows that social media is wildly out of control when it comes to radicalizing,” Patel said. 

Graham went on to press Patel about how he would characterize “the state of threats to our homeland by foreign terrorist groups,” which the latter replied to by pointing out that such organizations were working to adapt technologically.

“Foreign terrorist organizations have adapted and started utilizing online platforms and so has the FBI. While they are adapting [and] expanding how they harm our country, we have as well. They have not stopped. There’s been a resurgence [of terrorist threats] in places like West Africa and elsewhere of foreign terrorist organizations and also the newly emboldened drug trafficking organizations in Mexico,” Patel said, adding that addressing this surge was “going to take a whole-of-government approach.”

Patel responded affirmatively when asked if his previous comment could apply to Hezbollah, and concurred with Graham’s assessment that “Hezbollah is involved in not only terrorism but narcoterrorism.”

At another point in the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Patel if Jeffrey Epstein was “an intelligence asset for the U.S. government or a foreign government.” Online conspiracy theories have alleged, without evidence, that Epstein worked for the Mossad.

“I can only speak to the FBI, as the director of the FBI, and Mr. Epstein was not a source for the FBI,” Patel replied, later vowing to provide Congress with “all records I am legally permitted to do so under the court orders.”