Given the operational sophistication, my bet would be CIA. And the goal was to create a catastrophic bloodbath they could tie Trump to, in order to oust him. https://twitter.com/ahab4k/status/1265254070467604481

Obviously the ADL is awful, and the alt-right were legitimately victimized here, but the game was much bigger than the alt-right folks seem to understand.

I haven’t had time to review the FOIA docs here yet, but earlier disclosures indicated that the city deployed far too few barriers (despite considerable availability) and suspiciously many ambulances. They wanted trouble and they planned for it.

And you can see this by contrasting the city’s preparations for UTR with those for the actual Klan rally held in the same park a few weeks prior. The city had the power to keep the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators safe. But someone didn’t want them to.

But I don’t think Trump was caught entirely offguard. Wictor had a great thread at the time (since deleted) showing how federal agents were on scene undercover (as they were at many of the 2017-2018 protest/riots) collecting evidence and likely DNA.

I wouldn’t assume those investigations were just dropped. I suspect we may hear more of this. Possibly from John Durham...