Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed that the Justice Department will be examining who may have funded recent riots in cities like Los Angeles.
Gabbard said in a Wednesday interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters that federal assets will be deployed to determine who may have been financially enticing the rioters, who opposed the efforts of ICE to deport illegal aliens.
She also contended that California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing the bidding of drug cartels by refusing to discourage the violent protests.
“Whether he knows it or not, he is, certainly,” she said of Newsom.
“Again, this is something that the Department of Justice and the FBI is looking into — who is funding these protesters,” Gabbard continued.
“We’ve seen the ads put up on Craigslist offering people thousands of dollars a week to go out and conduct these violent and dangerous riots in the streets of not only Los Angeles, but we saw earlier in Chicago, New York, and other cities across the country,” she added.
Gabbard: This is something that the department of justice and FBI is looking into, who is funding these protesters. We’ve seen the ads put up on craigslist offering people thousands of dollars a week to go out and conduct these violent and dangerous riots pic.twitter.com/kEwFcEhBCV
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 12, 2025
While the Associated Press noted that the particular Craigslist advertisement Gabbard appears to have been referencing was a hoax, the question of who may have been bankrolling protesters still remains.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which received tens of millions in state and federal government grants under the Biden administration, sponsored a rally earlier this month against ICE enforcing immigration laws.
The leftist group received $34 million in the fiscal year that ended June 2023, a sum that appears to be largely derived from the state government of California, according to a report from the New York Post.
That haul was an increase from $12 million received in the previous year.
Beyond California, roughly $450,000 came from the Department of Homeland Security for “citizenship education and training.”
Those funds arrived between October 2021 and September 2024, during which the Biden administration was in charge.
Under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has ended their relationship with the group and managed to get back almost $101,000 that hadn’t yet been paid to the program.
In their most recent year, CHIRLA jumped from 12 million to 34 million in government grants. Nice!
However, this is probably from CA – “only” 450K in federal grants. pic.twitter.com/ghXFehJkdD
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) June 8, 2025
A spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights nevertheless denied that the group was involved with violent protests.
He asserted that the group has “been sending legal observers to immigration courts and detention centers on Friday, Saturday and today as part of the LA Rapid Response Network,” as well as hosted a news conference.
The representative added, “We have not participated, coordinated, or been part of the protests being registered in Los Angeles other than the press conference and rally cited above.”
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