Ex-Antifa member slams Nadler for calling far-left group 'imaginary': 'That's just false'

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Former Antifa member responds to Rep. Jerry Nadler's claim that radical group is 'imaginary'

Gabriel Nadales, former Antifa member, responds on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

Gabriel Nadales, a former member of Antifa, responded on "The Ingraham Angle" Friday to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., calling the group "imaginary" earlier this week.

"That's just false," Nadales said of Nadler's claim. "I mean, the only thing that's imaginary here is Representative Nadler's sense of justice. I mean, the protests I attended ... weren't imaginary. Also, the windows that I regrettably broke, they weren't imaginary.

"Yet every single time that we have left-wing politicians ... that deny and ignore and even justify Antifa violence, it's only going to continue to grow."

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Nadler made the claim Thursday during a debate in the House on Democrats' proposed police reform legislation.

"They couldn't utter the phrase 'black lives matter' and could barely [broach] the subject of police reform," Nadler said of House Republicans. "Instead, their amendments ... were errant nonsense, off-topic, dealing with imaginary things like Antifa and completely negating the entire purpose of the bill."

Nadales told "Ingraham Angle" host Tammy Bruce he was "indoctrinated" before he joined Antifa by Spanish-language media and his teachers to believe "America was my enemy, not because America rejected me, but because I kept being told that I was a victim."

"Thankfully, I started asking questions about this movement. And then, really I ... got the information that I needed and I realized that being part of it was something that I should've never been part of," Nadales said. "And now I'm glad that I'm condemning it. But one thing to remember is, where is Antifa really coming from? Because Mr. Nadler thinks that it's imaginary. Well, it's coming, oftentimes, from college campuses."

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Nadler's comment on the House floor Thursday drew an angry response from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the Judiciary Committee's top Republican.

"They're not imaginary, they're real ..." Jordan said. "To have the chair of the Judiciary Committee, on the House floor, say ... these words ... 'imaginary things like Antifa.' They are far from imaginary. And there are people in every major city in this country who know that and yet the chair of the Judiciary Committee just made that statement. That is scary."

Fox News' Nick Givas contributed to this report.