By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
San Diego, CA – San Francisco Attorney Curtis Briggs this week filed a motion to disqualify the San Diego County DA’s Office in a case involving multiple defendants accused of a confrontation in January 2021 (shortly after the events on January 6) between Antifa and Patriots in Pacific Beech.
Briggs represents 40-year-old Jeremy White of Los Angeles. Eleven people were charged with conspiracy to riot and 28 other felonies in the indictment. According to one media account, six of the defendants have taken pleas with the remaining five defendants maintaining their innocence of the charges.
Briggs, who successfully recused the San Luis Obispo DA’s office in the 2020 Tianna Arrata case, has filed a motion to recuse Summer Stephan’s office.
“Summer Stephan has been unable to separate her political platform against antifa from her ethical duty to enforce the law evenhandedly,” wrote Briggs in his 242 page motion. “This has resulted in false allegations against Mr. White while she has formed a prosecutorial shield around a core group of right-wing hate groups that have been responsible for a string of brutal publicized attacks at San Diego protests, including the one for which Mr. White is falsely accused.”
Briggs dates some of her bias back to 2018, when then-candidate Stephan “exploited 
voters’ fears about antifa during one of the most politically divisive times in America.”
He continues, “Choosing one of the simplest paths to election, she fed on the psyche of citizens who were legitimately concerned about San Diego’s future by using propaganda that characterized antifa as an ‘attack’ on public safety.”
Briggs notes that, for over a decade, both the extreme left and right have “antagonized one another using discussions about billionaire philanthropists to provoke their fundraising bases into action.”
While the left utilizes the Koch Brothers, “The extreme Right uses George Soros as their boogeyman.”
Indeed, a 2021 Daily Beast article noted, “Prosecutor Going After Antifa Peddled Antisemitic George Soros Conspiracies.”
“Claims that George Soros funds antifa or is otherwise involved in fomenting civil unrest related to Black Lives Matter protests are false and touch on longstanding, sometimes antisemitic conspiracy theories,” the Anti-Defamation League notes.
The Beast article notes that Stephan was funding a controversial website tying her 2018 opponent to Soros and antifa, “When the Times of San Diego questioned Stephan about the website and antisemitism in 2018, she walked away from the interview without comment.”
In his motion, Briggs notes, “In a contentious 2018 election in San Diego, Stephan was at risk of losing to a progressive candidate… Stephan sought a temporary advantage at any price, and she adopted a strategy that was working in many election races across the country at that time: blame antifa!”
As a result, Briggs charges, “Stephan made a deal with the devil.”
However, he argues, “Antifa was not a true threat to San Diego public safety.”
“Regardless of what Stephan’s true personal beliefs are, her political deal with the devil predictably aroused white supremacists, including members of San Diego’s chapter of the American Guard who have become emboldened by Stephan’s adoption of their platform,” Briggs alleges.
He notes, “Stephan’s office has been criticized publicly for refusing to investigate or charge right-wing extremists for their violent attacks against racial justice protestors. She continues to target antifa through this prosecution despite the enormous evidence in discovery of organized political violence by American Guard members, Proud Boys, and Defend East County.”
Shockingly, he further alleges, “even though the ‘victims’ are politically outspoken and prolific on social media, Stephan moved to seal their names in the grand jury transcript so their publicly documented membership in violent hate groups would be concealed.”
The incident that occurred on January 9 has national implications with many on the right, according to Briggs being “misled by President Trump into believing the election was stolen, ultimately triggering the Capitol Insurrection.”
That bled into San Diego where “certain right-wing groups became more violent” and were met with resistance from anti-fascist groups.
“Protests became the battleground where both sides would show up in tactical gear, helmets, and yielding weapons,” Briggs argues.
On January 9, three days after the insurrection at the US Capitol, “a mob of right-wing extremists, including Proud Boys, American Guard members, and other legitimate conservative supporters organized a “Patriot March” and descended on the Pacific Beach neighborhood in San Diego.”
Briggs alleges that many were intending to provoke anti-fascists into violence.
However, Briggs alleges that Stephan’s office played favorites, and “[d]espite viral videos, police bodycams, public witness statements, and widespread media coverage showing right-wing extremists committing violent and unprovoked attacks at the protest, Stephan’s office chose once again to ignore their criminal acts.”
Instead, Briggs argues, “Stephan chose to spend her office’s massive resources on a sprawling, multi-county investigation into the antifa defendants only.”
Stephan went further, issuing a press release several months after the event, “falsely asserting that antifa was solely responsible for the violence at the protest.”
The press release was entitled, “DA Charges Defendants Responsible for Violent Pacific Beach Incident.”
The release claimed, “Video evidence analysis shows that overwhelmingly the violence in this incident was perpetrated by the Antifa affiliates and was not a mutual fray with both sides crossing out of lawful First Amendment expression into riot and violence.”
She directed her office to obtain indictments in secrecy based “in large part on incompetent and prejudicial “expert testimony” describing antifa as violent criminals who victimize innocent members of the general public.”
He further alleges, “At the same time prosecutors obscured all of the ‘victim’s’ associations with extremist groups who provoked the attacks by counterprotestors, and who are pledged to do anything legal or illegal to stop the antifa.”
Briggs argues that “this motion establishes that Stephan’s bias not only creates an apparent conflict of interest; it amounts to an actual conflict that is directly interfering with Mr. White’s right to a fair trial. To enforce Mr. White’s right to a fair and impartial trial, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office must be disqualified.”
