For years, we've known that there's little daylight between the Portland Antifa militants and the local government. We've learned that some violent rioters work for local universities and municipal health care facilities, as Andy Ngo has reported, and they have close ties to City Hall gigs, but this one case hits different. When the same governor who this week tried to gaslight the nation that there was no Antifa violence at the Portland ICE headquarters also employs a close aide who assaulted cops during the 2020 Antifa riots, that's what you call a problem. The problem is said governor and her lack of judgment.
Andy Ngo reports that even after then-House Speaker Tina Kotek's aide attacked cops outside the East Police Precinct in the spreading unrest, Gov. Tina Kotek hired her as an aide at the Capitol statehouse.
Kotek proclaimed her aide pure of heart because "Every person – including members of my staff – has the right to stand up for what they believe and engage in nonviolent resistance," The Hill reported at the time. Kotek went on to simultaneously throw cops under the bus while rationalizing her aide's violence. "Kristina’s experience is similar to what other Portlanders have experienced over the last few months," she alleged, failing to elucidate what "experience" she meant. Then came the whopper: "We need peace and accountability.”
Perhaps it was Kotek's same lack of judgment that caused her to say over the weekend that there was no violence in Portland and that President Trump should keep his troops out. Indeed, she claimed she told President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that "Portland and the State of Oregon believe in the rule of law and can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection."
Related: Portland's Love Affair With Antifa Grows Deeper: Mayors Vow to Fight for Them and Against ICE
Andy Ngo replied to Kotek:
If you believe in the rule of law, why was your legislative director arrested at an extremely violent Antifa insurrection attack in September 2020 then promoted to be your senior advisor? https://t.co/9nIod2BkBC pic.twitter.com/KpPtqOS4Kh
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) September 29, 2025
That's weird, because this scene — in which your aide, Kristina Narayan, threw munitions at cops, and in which a Portland Police officer was burned — seems a bit dangerous.
Portland protest day 100 pic.twitter.com/aQw3sGEyYT
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) September 6, 2020
Things are different on the left. It appears that Kotek and her cohort's idea of "rule of law" and how the cops, sidelined for months while Antifa militants howl at the moon and set things on fire outside the ICE HQ, are somehow peaceful and comply with "public safety needs."
The Washington Examiner reports that Narayan was there when "nearly 60 rioters [were] arrested overnight on Sept. 5, 2020, when a mob of antifa militants hurled firebombs, mortars, and other projectiles at officers outside the East Portland Community Policing Center."
That night, for four hours, the crowd attempted to get past the police blockade and descend upon the East Precinct. Rioters lit fires in the streets, including setting dumpsters, garbage cans, and wooden pallets ablaze. One of the Molotov cocktails, thrown near a residential neighborhood, caught a community member on fire.
A sergeant suffered burns from being directly struck by a commercial-grade firework. Several officers and state troopers were hit in the head with rocks, and an Oregon State Police (OSP) vehicle sustained significant damage, its windshields shattered by a barrage of rocks.
Narayan was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of interfering with a peace officer. However, she was immediately released without bail, and her charges were dropped soon after, court records show. At the time, hundreds of riot-related cases were dismissed due to the Portland district attorney’s progressive prosecution policies.
That's not "freedom of expression," Governor Kotek; that's actually a riot in service to an insurrection.
After Narayan participated in a riot and attacked officers, the cops let her out on her own recognizance, and then the Soros district attorney, Mike Schmidt, who's since been deposed, let her off.
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